VII. CONCLUSION “The one thing I need to achieve my dreams is citizenship.” 177 All children have rights and inherent potential to make important contributions to their societies. Statelessness violates children’s rights and limits their potential, hindering them from achieving their hopes and dreams, or even having them at all. In today’s global but bureaucratic world, it is more important than ever that all children have a birth certificate, a nationality and official proof of that nationality, so they can access all their rights as children and human beings. Improving laws, policies and practices can bring life-changing benefits to children and allow them to grow up in more stable situations, in which they have much better chances of thriving. Addressing statelessness also benefits societies in myriad other ways: promoting future innovation by expanding access to education; reducing poverty and economic burdens on States by supporting access to work and increased earning potential; decreasing discontent amongst marginalized people; reducing mental and physical illness through improved access to healthcare; and more. Most stateless children lack a nationality through no fault of their own, yet they are sometimes blamed for being stateless or are punished for the actions or omissions of their parents, governments or others that led to their statelessness. The examples included in this report illustrate that OSCE participating States have collectively made significant progress towards preventing childhood statelessness. Key examples of good practices include: outreach to marginalized and/or remote communities; finding solutions for particularly vulnerable groups, such as children in State care; legal amendments to facilitate access to nationality; and State funding for effective legal aid systems that stateless people can access. 177 Quote by Jirair, a stateless person in Georgia, see UNHCR, I Am Here, I Belong, p. 21. 65