12 essential to effectively implement efforts to end Roma statelessness and develop appropriate policies. Across the region, there are limited official mechanisms to record when individuals attempt to access civil registration services but are refused, nor are there follow-up mechanisms or cooperation with civil society organisations to ensure that such cases are resolved. This is a missed opportunity to monitor and resolve individual cases and improve the quality of data on individuals at risk of statelessness. Compounding this challenge is the absence of formalised cross-border data sharing and cooperation between Beneficiaries in the region. Given the causes and consequences of statelessness in the region, shaped by histories of migration, displacement, and State succession, this lack of coordination results in complex cases involving individuals born abroad, returning migrants, or families with mixed residence and citizenship statuses remaining unaddressed for lengthy periods of time. Consequently, individuals affected, including children, remain at risk of statelessness and invisible to public institutions for years, with no structured means for case monitoring or resolution. In order to effectively implement commitments to resolve remaining cases of (risk of) statelessness in the region, there is an urgent need for all Beneficiaries to work together with each other, with regional institutions and international organisations, and with community-based and civil society organisations, to proactively identify remaining cases, monitor these, cooperate across borders, and regularly report reliable disaggregated data to inform and shape more appropriate legal, policy, and service responses. Gaps in measures to prevent statelessness Challenges in implementing legal safeguards to prevent childhood statelessness Legal safeguards to prevent statelessness at birth are critical to ensuring that no child is left without citizenship due to the status of their parents, gaps in citizenship laws, or any other circumstances beyond their control. Applying these safeguards is also a clear obligation under international law, most notably set out in Article 1 of the 1961 Convention, which requires Beneficiaries to grant citizenship to children born on their territory who would otherwise be stateless.16 Positively, across the Western Balkans, citizenship laws have incorporated legal safeguards to prevent childhood statelessness in many cases. However, the scope and operation of these safeguards vary significantly, and there are critical implementation gaps that hinder their effectiveness and leave some children at risk of growing up without citizenship. A key concern is that, while legal safeguards to ensure otherwise stateless children born on the territory acquire citizenship are automatic by law, in practice they often require parents to take further steps to ensure their children acquire citizenship. These steps can include submitting an application or taking action to complete the birth registration process, and often present barriers for parents (particularly mothers) who are undocumented, have irregular residence status, or lack the legal and administrative support needed to navigate complex procedures. Without assistance, many families struggle to complete these procedures, leaving children stateless for a period of time until their case can be resolved despite having an entitlement to citizenship by law. Access to these safeguards is further hindered by administrative and practical obstacles that disproportionately affect marginalised communities. These can include application fees, which can be prohibitive for families living in poverty or remote areas where transportation costs and time add to the burden, and the absence of publicly-funded legal aid means that parents must often navigate complex procedures alone with little guidance on how to do so or their children’s rights. Many parents, particularly in communities facing systemic exclusion and living in informal settlements, are unaware of their children’s citizenship status. Furthermore, there is very limited data or publicly available information on how these safeguards operate in practice. Statistics on the number of children acquiring citizenship through these mechanisms are either unavailable or not disaggregated, making it difficult to assess their impact or identify where action is needed to improve their implementation. 16 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, Article 1: “A Contracting State shall grant its nationality to a person born in its territory who would otherwise be stateless”.