CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA \Y legal recognition as nationals (though legal nationality is never a sufficient solution to social and political exclusion, it is almost always a necessary starting point). The design of identification systems — including those intended to avoid these problems by postponing a decision on nationality —is thus highly sensitive. There is a need for careful attention to detail, and efforts to establish political consensus, avoid reinforcing existing exclusions or creating new ones. While Somalia is perhaps in order to the most challenging environment, the same issues arise in all countries of the region. Any discussion of the best institutional arrangements to manage these issues must therefore focus on the reality that in contexts where a very large percentage of people currently do not have a birth certificate or any other official identity document, alternative systems for proof of identity are necessary for initial enrolment to take place. Important lessons can be drawn for identity registration from the history of establishing states. independent electoral commissions, In the Horn of Africa in particular, where enrolment processes establishment of require many independent individual identity responsible for voter registration in many African existing identity infrastructure is weak, decisions commissions over could who play is eligible a critical for role and adult nationality, the ensuring that in statelessness is prevented and reduced as identification systems are strengthened. It is particularly important that the regulatory framework for determination of nationality clearly establishes the evidence — including witness testimony where no documents are available -- that must be provided for a previously undocumented the ways in which a decision to deny person to be recognised as a nationality may be challenged citizen or not, and sets out both administratively and in the courts.*** If such protections are built in as new systems are rolled out, with the political backing for their inclusion, the inadvertent creation of stateless populations can be avoided. What is required is a procedure that first identifies those individuals and groups that are of undetermined nationality and confirms an existing nationality or facilitates their acquisition of nationality through naturalisation. AS a secondary protection, suitable especially for individuals who are not in the country of their birth, the status of stateless person may be granted, as an interim status pending acquisition of nationality. The prevention and reduction of statelessness thus requires both the creation of legal routes to acquire nationality based on birth in the territory or long residence, and the adoption of procedures to ensure their implementation in practice. 332 Bronwen Manby, ‘The Sustainable Development Goals and “Legal Identity for All’: “First, Do No Harm’’, World Development 139 (2021), https://doi.org/10.1016/j. worlddev.2020.105343. 76 UNHCR — December 2021