2019 Statelessness & Citizenship Review 1(2) nationally and within regions to address statelessness. These include the 2014 Brazil Declaration and Plan of Action, 16 the 2015 Abidjan Declaration of ECOWAS Member States on the Eradication of Statelessness, 17 the 2017 Banjul Plan of Action of the Economic Community of West African States on the Eradication of Statelessness, 18 the 2017 Declaration of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region Member States on the Eradication of Statelessness, 19 the 2018 N’Djamena Initiative on the Eradication of Statelessness in Central Africa and the 2018 League of Arab States’ Arab Declaration on ‘Belonging and Legal Identity’. 20 Prior to the High-Level Segment, UNHCR, together with partners, conducted 10 regional workshops throughout the world to facilitate discussions on successes to date as well as any remaining gaps at the national and regional levels. 21 These consultations led in many instances to a series of pre-High-Level Segment commitments for action, as outlined by states, partners, regional organisations, civil society and advocates. These commitments were clearly manifested at the High-Level Segment where over 350 pledges were delivered by states, organisations and civil society outlining action planned to end statelessness by 2024. This number of pledges, most of them specific, timebound and measurable, is unprecedented with regard to the problem of statelessness. Never before has there been such an upswelling of support and collaboration to eradicate statelessness and to ensure that by a specific point in time every person on the planet is able to state ‘I Belong’ to a particular country. This level of commitment to act makes the potential to end statelessness an operational challenge rather than an abstract idea. It is also of note that the High-Level Segment included broad representation of those in positions to play a role in reaching the critical target. The panel segment included not only policy makers, leaders and advocates such as the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, Ms Amina Mohammed, the High Commissioner for Refugees, Mr Filippo Grandi and the High Commissioner on National Minorities from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Mr Lamberto Zannier, it also included a well-known actor, director and UNHCR Goodwill Ambassador, Ms Cate Blanchett, as well as a formerly stateless person and civil society activist, Ms Maha Mamo. The panel configuration and 16 17 18 19 20 21 Brazil Declaration and Plan of Action (Declaration, Cartagena 30+ 3 December 2014) <https://www.acnur.org/fileadmin/Documentos/BDL/2014/9865.pdf>. Abidjan Declaration of Ministers of ECOWAS Member States on Eradication of Statelessness (Declaration, Economic Community of West African States 25 February 2015) <https://www.refworld.org/docid/54f588df4.html>. Banjul Plan of Action of the Economic Community of West African States on the Eradication of Statelessness (Plan of Action, Economic Community of West African States 2017) <https://www.unhcr.org/591c38347.pdf>. Declaration of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region Member States on the Eradication of Statelessness (Declaration, International Conference on the Great Lakes Region, ICGLR/RIMC/DEC/STA/15/10/2017, 16 October 2017) <https://data2.unhcr.org/en/documents/download/63955>. N’Djamena Initiative on the Eradication of Statelessness in Central Africa (Declaration, Community of Central African States 12 December 2018) <https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/67429.pdf>; Arab Declaration on ‘Belonging and Legal Identity’ (Declaration, League of Arab States 28 February 2018) <https://equalnationalityrights.org/images/zdocs/Final-Ministerial-Conference-Declarationon-Belonging-and-Identity---English.pdf>. See generally The Campaign to End Statelessness: April – June 2019 Update (Report, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees July 2019) <https://www.refworld.org/pdfid/5d356a927.pdf>. 310