Union candidate and neighbourhood countries in the Western Balkans and Ukraine.12 The report primarily focuses on the Western Balkan countries of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia, with additional anecdotal information from Albania, Kosovo and Ukraine. It highlights factors contributing to the marginalization and exclusion faced by Romani communities, which can be a cause and consequence of statelessness. Previous UPR of The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia under the First and Second Cycle (2009 and 2014) 10. Macedonia was previously reviewed under the UPR in 2009 (under the first cycle) and in 2014 (under the second cycle). 11. In the first cycle, Argentina recommended that Macedonia should: “Put in place a national comprehensive plan for civil status registration and the right to identity, which includes awareness raising campaigns for parents, guardians and other responsible persons, which will help to speed up the registration of births.” Further, Mexico recommended that Macedonia should: “promote the exercise by the Roma of their economic, social and cultural rights, in particular by implementing programs to facilitate birth registration and the issuing of identity documents for this sector of the population”. 12. The Macedonian Government’s position was that: “The Law on Birth, Marriage and Death Registers, sets forth the obligation of registering the birth of a child born in a medical facility and the birth of a child born at home. No fees are charged for documents and procedures for registration and entry of data in the Registers of Births, Marriages and Deaths. It has been established that the Roma population has the greatest problems with the registry records. Therefore, a large number of educational and information meetings and debates have been organized by governmental and non-governmental organizations. Aiming at better informing the Roma population about the exercise of their rights and obligations regarding the entry in the Registers, and for purposes of better explaining the procedures for registering the place of residence and procedures for issuance of personal identification cards, brochures in the Roma language have been published and informative spots are broadcast at the state Television and at local TV stations broadcasting programs in the Roma language.” 13. Macedonia also received relevant recommendations under the second cycle. Congo recommended that Macedonia should “Allow free movement of Albanian and Roma minorities and resolve the problem of lack of identity documents, which constitutes an obstacle to the exercise of their rights”; Mexico recommended that the country should “Launch a campaign for the birth registration of children and adults living on the streets and for those belonging to ethnic minorities to facilitate the obtaining of identification documents”. Namibia and Slovenia recommended that the country 12See Roma Belong: Statelessness, Discrimination and Marginalization of Roma in the Western Balkans and Ukraine available at: http://www.errc.org/uploads/upload_en/file/roma-belong.pdf 4