EC/68/SC/CRP.13 24. UNHCR worked with United Nations and NGO partners, such as UNICEF and the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, to develop quick reference guides on statelessness and human rights treaties. These are intended to assist practitioners working on statelessness and to bring attention to statelessness by human rights treaty bodies and the Human Rights Council. Such reference guides have been produced for the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,11 the Convention on the Rights of the Child,12 and the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.13 Pursuant to a 2016 Human Rights Council resolution on the right to nationality, in May 2017 the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and UNHCR co-organized an intersessional workshop on the removal of gender discrimination from nationality laws, which produced a set of practical recommendations to States. III. Resources 25. The statelessness budget, pillar II in UNHCR’s budget structure, decreased somewhat as a result of resource constraints. To draw attention to the financial resources needed to strengthen implementation of UNHCR’s statelessness mandate, UNHCR launched the firstever special appeal on statelessness for 2017-2018 in the amount of US$ 47 million, which targets 11 countries hosting major stateless or at-risk populations.14 Notwithstanding the increased focus on statelessness by United Nations Member States, additional engagement and support is needed to reach the Campaign’s goals. 26. The seven dedicated regional statelessness posts filled from 2012 to 2014 strengthened UNHCR’s capacity to address statelessness. One additional position covering East Africa was created in 2016, and a new position was established at Headquarters in 2017. New positions dedicated fully or partly to statelessness were also created in Côte d’Ivoire, Kenya, Malaysia, South Sudan, Sudan and Thailand. Statelessness Officers were deployed to Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal, Thailand and Zimbabwe under the specialized roster of the “Surge protection capacity project” from 2015 to 2017. UNHCR also provided targeted resources to support activities related to statelessness through the “Seeds for solutions” mechanism and other specialized funds. IV. Conclusion and outlook 27. As recent experience has shown, the Campaign has raised awareness and produced tangible results, but more needs to be done to accelerate the reduction and prevention of statelessness in order to meet the ambitious targets of the “Global action plan”. In the coming two-year period, UNHCR will seek the support of United Nations Member States to prioritize statelessness in a number of countries, consistent with the Office’s “Strategic directions” (2017-2021). The Office will also continue to work with United Nations Member States and agencies as well as civil society to link statelessness advocacy efforts to relevant initiatives, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the global compacts on refugees and for safe, orderly and regular migration. The “programme of action” of the global compact on refugees will provide an important opportunity to address statelessness as a root cause of displacement and to link improvements in the refugee response to the prevention and reduction of statelessness, including in the areas of reception and admission and with respect to the provision of civil documentation. 11 12 13 14 8 Available from http://www.refworld.org/docid/58c25e3a4.html. Available from http://www.refworld.org/docid/58c25eb14.html. Available from http://www.refworld.org/docid/58e38a3f4.html. Available from http://bit.ly/2qMDHDI.