EC/66/SC/CRP.11 (b) Promoting law reform and providing technical advice to prevent statelessness 12. Inadequate constitutional and legislative provisions in a significant number of States continued to render children and adults stateless and pose obstacles to resolving existing situations of statelessness. As a result, prevention of statelessness among children and removal of gender and other forms of discrimination from nationality laws are key actions in the Global Action Plan. 13. During 2013-2014, UNHCR promoted reform of nationality and related legislation in 87 countries, up from 71 in 2011-2013, and provided technical advice to 45 States, up from 41 in the previous period. These included Estonia, Georgia, Senegal and Turkmenistan, all of which amended their legislation during the reporting period. A number of other countries made commitments to carry out similar law reforms, including six West African States which made pledges at the February 2015 ECOWAS conference. 14. An important area for UNHCR during the reporting period was the promotion of gender equal nationality laws, both in respect of legal provisions which prevent mothers from passing on their nationality to their children and those which do not permit women to acquire, change or retain their nationality on an equal basis with men. In the past two years, Senegal and Surinam adopted legislative amendments which introduced complete gender equality in their nationality laws, bringing the total number of countries that have reformed their nationality laws to allow women to pass on their nationality to their children on equal basis with men to 12 in the last 12 years. Côte d’Ivoire and Niger reformed their laws to ensure gender equality in respect of acquisition, change and retention of nationality. Several other countries are studying the possibility of such reforms, including The Bahamas, Madagascar and Somalia. Currently, 27 countries still discriminate against women in their ability to pass on their nationality to their children and over 60 countries discriminate against women with regard to acquisition, change or retention of nationality. 15. To assist States and other actors, in March 2015 UNHCR published a paper on Good Practices on Removing Gender Discrimination from Nationality Laws which sets out how nationality law reforms were achieved in Algeria, Morocco and Senegal. 16. UNHCR also continued its advocacy efforts through research on the situation of children, women and entire families affected by gender discrimination in nationality laws. In collaboration with local partners, the Office conducted roundtable discussions in Kenya and Madagascar with women who had not been able to pass on their nationality to their children, or had faced difficulties in doing so, and their families. (c) Establishing protection regimes for stateless persons in the migration context 17. While the majority of stateless persons are found within their own countries, a minority of the global population migrate. Others are rendered stateless because their nationality may have been withdrawn while they were living abroad. Effective identification of such stateless people within broader migration movements is essential for ensuring their protection in accordance with the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and relevant international human rights standards and is therefore included in the Global Action Plan. 18. The Office promoted adoption of statelessness determination procedures in 46 States and provided technical advice on such procedures to 20 governments. This was roughly equivalent to the efforts undertaken in 2011-2013. In May 2015, UNHCR organized a meeting with 16 governments on the identification and protection of stateless people, the 5