EXECUTIVE SUMMARY PRM WORK ON STATELESSNESS The United States Government (USG), through the Department of State (DOS) Bureau of Population, Migration and Refugees (PRM), supports the identification, prevention, and reduction of statelessness and the protection of stateless persons. As the single largest donor to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), PRM’s funding contributes to UNHCR’s core work on statelessness as well as its implementation and monitoring of the 10 actions of the Global Action Plan to End Statelessness: 20142024 (GAP) and the #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness (#IBelong Campaign). PRM also funded the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights (GCENR) at the Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC) and research on statelessness. Funding is complemented by bilateral and multilateral diplomacy. EVALUATION OVERVIEW The Evaluation of PRM-Supported Initiatives to Prevent and Reduce Statelessness, hereafter referred to as “the evaluation,” seeks to inform PRM’s statelessness strategy through the end of the #IBelong Campaign in 2024 and beyond. PRM contracted Resonance, through the Performance Management and Evaluation Services (PMES) Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) mechanism, to carry out the evaluation. The evaluation report includes findings and conclusions from the evaluation research, which serve as the basis of recommendations for PRM. Findings are organized around the three main evaluation questions (EQs), to present (1) evidence of how PRM’s statelessness strategy is implemented through its funding and diplomacy, (2) an assessment of the effectiveness of the strategy and its contributions to the GAP, and (3) an overview of PRM’s monitoring strategy and remaining gaps. EVALUATION SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY The scope of this evaluation includes: (1) PRM’s funding in support of UNHCR’s statelessness mandate from 2014 to the present; (2) the effectiveness of the UNHCR GAP and the #IBelong Campaign; (3) PRMsupported U.S. multilateral and bilateral diplomatic engagements on statelessness from 2014 to present; (4) the effectiveness of PRM staffing levels and monitoring mechanisms for statelessness; and (5) the GCENR. Over a period of 10 months (July 2020-April 2021), a three-person Evaluation Team engaged a total of 165 people in the data gathering phase and close to 200 people through virtual interviews, workshops and focus group discussions (FGDs). The evaluation was conducted using a utilization-focused evaluation approach (U-FE), coupled with qualitative methods and outcome harvesting. KEY FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS Multiple informants lauded the effectiveness in raising awareness of statelessness of both the GAP and the #IBelong Campaign, to which PRM contributes funding and diplomatic support. The 2019 High-Level Segment on Statelessness (HLS), an event to secure pledges on statelessness by country governments and other actors as a part of the #IBelong Campaign, was a particularly effective tool in raising awareness of statelessness and securing specific pledges from countries and organizations, although many countries with major situations of statelessness did not pledge. The Group of Friends of the #IBelong Campaign (Group of Friends), a group of UN Member States including the U.S., has been effective in supporting United Nations (UN) human rights mechanisms on statelessness such as through the Universal Periodic Review and Human Rights Council Resolutions. These mechanisms, however, have not had much impact in effectuating change at the country level. Awarding a Nansen Refugee Award to a stateless activist and nominating regional finalists for the award was also rated as highly effective in raising awareness. The evaluation evidence demonstrated that the GAP was underfunded and under-resourced by UNHCR, with only a slight increase in the budget for GAP activities in many countries. Most informants stated that, while UNHCR’s engagement on statelessness has improved, the issue is still not prioritized within UNHCR. This evaluation found that statelessness, while part of UNHCR’s core mandate, is not funded in proportion to the needs, in part because of UNHCR’s demanding mandate to address refugee and humanitarian crises, for which the agency is always underfunded. The UNHCR Statelessness Section has done great work in issuing guidance on statelessness, but its position of relative low priority within the agency (as a Section vi