5. Recognise and prioritise statelessness as an issue Immediate response • Governments need to provide leadership and focus on the issue. COVID-19 is not an excuse to do less on statelessness. • Civil society should continuously monitor any changes to law, policy and guidance relevant to statelessness during the pandemic, to assess and raise awareness of the potential immediate and long-term impacts on stateless people Long term response • Governments should ensure that the topic of statelessness is represented in any relevant future policy debates and decision-making processes (e.g migration policy) to prevent further invisibility of statelessness as an issue • Governments, civil society and stateless people - Training and capacity building for authorities and civil society about what statelessness is, delivered by people affected by the issue, is needed to create long term change • Donors should effectively resource the work of stateless communities and activists as well as wider civil society, to continue providing support to people affected by statelessness and to raise awareness and advocate on the issue • Civil society needs to be an ally that works on the issue of statelessness and holds governments to account to fulfil the rights of stateless people • Civil society and stateless communities should work with social media influencers and other issue champions to share information and stories about statelessness 5