Box 34: Ready to Support " I will say that when interacting with PRM in Washington, it was always clear to me that if I had a question about statelessness, the people that handle statelessness were more than ready to jump in…. It’s the Foreign Service, you’re often thrown into a job and having to figure things out with a minimum of training. That’s the deal in our organization, but we covered the big picture stuff [during trainings]. There wasn’t any breakout though on, ‘Here’s how it works in your part of the world.’ or anything like that." Support to RefCoords from Washington. Sentiment analysis reveals that PRM RefCoords in Nepal and Thailand feel a moderate level of support from PRM Washington. They indicate some early orienting around statelessness but not consistent follow-up or ongoing support. Feedback from the previous RefCoord in Nepal showed that they knew support was there but did not have the time to take advantage of it given that the resettlement of Bhutanese refugees consumed the majority of his time (see Box 34). All respondents in the Dominican Republic (who were all Political Officers rather than RefCoords) indicated a high level of support, particularly from the PRM Caribbean Program Officer and more generally from PRM Washington staff who took several field trips there. Despite the lack of formal PRM training or orientation on statelessness, the Evaluation Team found that the Political Officers were highly engaged on statelessness issues. The Political Officer’s high level of commitment on statelessness was influenced by PRM Washington’s engagement with them through field trips, that were seen as catalytic events that helped push activities forward in the Dominican Republic. RefCoords based at regional/country level. Several of the RefCoords were in contact with the UNHCR Regional Statelessness Officers as a part of their monitoring and coordination activities. Most of those interviewed seemed very engaged with and knowledgeable of the #IBelong Campaign and the GAP. In one example, the monitoring focused on how UNHCR is cooperating with regional bodies, like the Economic Community of West African States30 or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. In another example, a RefCoord met with UNHCR to understand the larger policy issues and pledges made at the HLS for relevant countries in the region. RefCoords consistently observed a lack of available UNHCR resources for statelessness at the regional level, as expressed by one RefCoord in Box 35. Box 35: UNHCR Monitoring “Through our monitoring with UNHCR, I found that there is this goal to end statelessness, but there are not a lot of resources being dedicated to it. There have been a few isolated activities in the many different countries that I monitor - like some legal steps being taken -- but I do not see how these small piecemeal activities will concretely convert into ending statelessness.” 5.1.11 Types of Monitoring and Results Monitoring activities. PRM monitoring work was mostly done with formal and informal bilateral meetings at the country level. The Country Operations Plan (COP) survey was used as a monitoring tool by some RefCoords. One RefCoord said that the only time of the year that he heard about UNHCR’s statelessness work was when he conducted the COP survey with UNHCR. This alone could be a good reason to expand the use of PRM’s COP survey to ensure that statelessness monitoring is conducted more regularly. Also, it was unclear why it was used less often than other monitoring tools. In Thailand and Nepal, no program officer visits were reported to the Evaluation Team. 30 Note that the Economic Community of West African States has done extensive work on statelessness, but the West Africa region was not included in this evaluation. 1