Good practices in nationality laws for the prevention of childhood statelessness In addition to the 2020 amendments to the nationality law, the Government adopted a statelessness determination procedure in 2021 and, in 2023, introduced an instruction relating to its implementation and regulation, both of which indicate additional improvements in Albania’s approach to statelessness. Albania has a “National Register of Civil Status”, which is the state database where civil status is recorded and updated for every Albanian citizen, as well as foreigners with a residence permit, foreign nationals who have refugee status or subsidiary protection, and stateless people with residence or a place to stay in the Republic of Albania. The impact of safeguards against childhood statelessness Albania has recently taken steps to prevent and reduce the risk of statelessness and has pledged to address remaining gaps in the legal framework. At the Global Refugee Forum in 2023, Albania pledged to “fully implement the relevant provisions of the revised Civil Status Law aimed at eliminating statelessness by the end of 2024” and to have reviewed and operationalized the Statelessness Determination Procedure to ensure the rights and obligations of recognized stateless people by the end of 2024.69 The changes to Albania’s nationality law, especially the 2020 amendment, have resulted in significantly more of the children born in Albania being granted Albanian nationality rather than remaining stateless. Kyrgyzstan Population overview Statelessness in Kyrgyzstan is primarily linked to the dissolution of the former Soviet Union and related factors. Many people throughout Central Asia, including in Kyrgyzstan, were left stateless in the 1990s due to gaps or contradictions in nationality laws. By 2014, approximately 2,000 stateless children had been identified in Kyrgyzstan. This was an inter-generational gap; they were stateless because their parents were stateless or lacked documents proving nationality. In 2019, Kyrgyzstan became the first country to resolve the lack of citizenship of all known stateless people. From 2014 to 2019, collaborative efforts by the Kyrgyz Government, UNHCR, Ferghana Valley Lawyers Without Borders and others resulted in the reduction of the number of stateless people from 13,700 to zero.70 69 70 34 UNHCRs 2023 Global Refugee Forum; Statement from Albania, UNHCR 2023 Global Refugee Forum. These efforts led to Azizbek Ashurov, the head of Ferghana Valley Lawyers Without Borders, being awarded the prestigious Nansen Refugee Award. See Azizbek Ashurov from Kyrgyzstan wins UNHCR Nansen Refugee Award 2019, UNHCR (no date).