STATELESSNESS AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE EAST AFRICAN COMMUNITY nationality. Alternative forms of authentication of a person should be accepted where the currently required documentary evidence is not available. For example, documents such as primary school completion certificates, birth notification documents, or health clinic attendance cards should be accepted where birth certificates are not available, especially for older generations. Witness testimony should also be permitted. If a person’s entitlement to nationality is questioned, the civil law procedure for consideration of the facts and issue of a certificate of nationality by a court would be best practice; at minimum there should be accessible and low cost procedures for court review of a decision by the executive branch. Decisions to recommend naturalisation should be made by a committee with a designated and balanced composition, based on clearly established criteria, and transmitted to the applicant in writing. The government departments responsible for nationality administration should also seek to dispel misunderstandings about access to nationality by publishing annual reports detailing disaggregated statistics where possible on acquisition of nationality (other than automatically at birth); deprivation of nationality; the times taken to process applications, and rejections for naturalisation or for issue of nationality documents (including passports and identity cards). The different government departments involved in such processes should have linked decision-making processes and channels of communication. Thus, if nationality is for all usual purposes shown by possession of a national identity card, then there should be a procedure to refer the nationality status of a person applying for an identity card for adjudication as part of the same process, rather than requiring a separate referral to immigration officials with an indefinite delay. If the person is not a national under current law but would qualify to acquire nationality, the application for a national identity card should be taken to be an application for acquisition of nationality and referred accordingly. Efforts to reduce statelessness There have been important efforts within the EAC to try to resolve questions of statelessness:     The adoption of (time-limited) provisions in the Kenyan Citizenship and Immigration Act 2011 for easier access to registration as a citizen for people resident in the country since independence. The protections against statelessness included in Rwanda’s nationality code, especially for children born in the territory who cannot claim another nationality and the right to acquire nationality based on birth and residence in the country until majority. Tanzania’s major initiatives to naturalise refugees present in the country for many decades. Uganda’s leverage of the initial mass registration process for a new national identity card to allow who are not citizens by birth to register as citizens. Among these legal provisions and initiatives, the Tanzanian government’s mass naturalisation programmes for refugees have been quite extensively studied, especially the most recent effort for “old caseload” Burundi refugees (see box pp. 66–67). The other efforts would reward greater study: the reasons why the Kenya legal provisions have not been as effective as hoped and the means by which it could be improved and extended; the processes for identification of children born stateless in Rwanda and for giving them Rwandan citizenship, and the ways in which Uganda’s citizenship registration processes were deployed during registration for the national identity card – and how they could be extended for regular use. Regional cooperation mechanisms There is a general lack of cooperation between countries (not only in East Africa) to resolve cases where nationality is in doubt. While there may be contact between consular authorities to obtain agreement on the nationality of a person without documents in order to arrange deportation, there is no positive system to establish nationality and documents for a person where it is clear that he or she can only lay claim to the nationality of two possible states, but both states are currently disputing that claim. It is usual for state officials to consider that their obligations centre on ensuring that people who are not entitled to citizenship do not obtain citizenship documents. But in the context of East Africa where many UNHCR / September 2018 85