Chapter 6 key legal and administrative barriers. Mauritania completed a large-scale civil registration campaign, registering over 600,000 people through simplified procedures, including people at risk of statelessness. Mali updated its National Action Plan with a new fouryear strategy to combat statelessness. Beyond individual countries, three important regional initiatives were launched in 2024 to resolve and prevent statelessness. Latin American and Caribbean states adopted as part of the Cartagena+40 process, The Chile Declaration and Plan of Action,193 reaffirming their commitment to protecting and finding solutions for displaced and stateless people. The League of Arab States launched the Arab Declaration on Belonging and Legal Identity, a regional initiative focused on enhancing birth registration and legal identity frameworks to address statelessness, displacement and conflict, with particular attention to advancing women’s legal rights. The African Union Assembly of States adopted the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights Relating to the Specific Aspects of the Right to a Nationality and the Eradication of Statelessness in Africa.194 The protocol aims to remove legal barriers that are preventing stateless people and those at risk of statelessness in Africa from accessing nationality. The Protocol introduces important advances, including measures to prevent generational statelessness, provisions for nomadic and cross-border populations and enhanced legal safeguards. It will come into force once it has been ratified by 15 African Union Member States.195 countries reformed their laws and policies to prevent and resolve statelessness and to better protect stateless people. The mission of the Global Alliance to End Statelessness is to accelerate solutions that can bring an end to statelessness. Its approach includes strategic workstreams that will seek to address key aspects of statelessness and promote effective solutions. Regional Network Labs aim to foster knowledge exchange and development of context-sensitive solutions, while Thematic Working Groups bring together expert groups on priority issues, such as addressing childhood statelessness, discrimination in nationality laws and policies and protecting the rights of stateless people. The Solution Seekers Programme of the Alliance aims to engage and support States and regional organizations that have pledged to resolve statelessness by providing implementation support, such as Alliance tools and, expertise on best practises. The Alliance also has an Online Marketplace that connects member-led statelessness projects with potential donors. In 2024, many initiatives towards ending statelessness were launched. In all cases, the political will to reduce the number of stateless people through passing new or revised legislation, to improve procedures or taking other measures enabling them to acquire citizenship or have their nationality confirmed, are underpinned by good quality data on statelessness. In October 2024, UNHCR launched the Global Alliance to End Statelessness.196 As of May 2025, the Alliance encompasses 141 States and organizations as members and reflects a whole-of-society approach, bringing together governments, regional intergovernmental organisations, UN agencies, civil society, stateless-led and faith-based organizations, academia and other stakeholders in coordinated action. It builds on the success of UNHCR’s 10year #IBelong campaign, during which more than 600,000 stateless people acquired citizenship, 14 States acceded to the 1954 Convention and 18 States to the 1961 Convention. In addition, many 193 See Cartagena+40 Chile Declaration and Plan of Action, 2024-2034. 194 See the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights Relating to the Specific Aspects of the Right to a Nationality and the Eradication of Statelessness in Africa. 195 See UNHCR lauds African Union move to address statelessness across the continent, UNHCR. 196 See the Global Alliance to End Statelessness which includes 23 governments, 11 regional/intergovernmental bodies, 4 UN agencies, 16 stateless-led groups, 66 civil society NGOs, 7 academic institutions, 5 faith-based organizations and others. UNHCR > GLOBAL TRENDS 2024 61