applicant. Some experts noted in this context the importance of child-friendly justice and the need to avoid undue delays, as set out under the Council of Europe child-friendly guidelines.16 RECOMMENDED ACTIONS FROM EXPERTS “The word stateless is associated with a lot of words ending in ‘less’. When you are stateless you feel worthless, futureless, faceless, helpless, hopeless, rootless, shoreless. You are on a rubber boat surrounded by water on a journey to nowhere. The only thing you have is your daydream of a shore that one day you might call home” (Lynn Al-Khatib) 50. During the technical meeting, the following actions were suggested: i. Intergovernmental conferences proved to be valuable means to encourage states to accede and implement the four relevant treaties on the protection of stateless people and the prevention and reduction of statelessness. These events were considered important to help benchmark progress as well as to facilitate peer learning. A forum/process should be established to facilitate ongoing sharing of information and support (e.g., the provision of draft legislation or other technical assistance) to help member states implement their obligations under relevant Conventions. ii. Technical meetings of experts on nationality should be organised to exchange information and good practices, focusing on specific groups of stateless/at risk migrants and refugees and their children, and taking into account specific geographical regions. States and other relevant experts can usefully share country of origin information and their experiences of applying rules to prevent statelessness in such cases. The goal of the meetings should be to develop practical guidance on how to deal concretely with such cases, including in consultation with relevant civil society and other experts. iii. Training of government officials (in particular SDP/asylum case workers but also others who come into contact with stateless people e.g., civil registrars and asylum screening officials) and other stakeholders (e.g., legal advisors of potentially stateless persons) is key. Materials for such trainings could be prepared by experts participating in the technical meetings, and/or mainstreamed as part of other Council of Europe or UNHCR training programmes (e.g., develop a module as part of the CoE HELP training programme). iv. Special attention should be afforded to stateless persons in situ and persons at risk of statelessness. If these persons where in the past treated as nationals, the protection of legitimate expectations should facilitate their access to nationality. 16 Council of Europe Committee of Ministers Guidelines on child-friendly justice, adopted on 17 November 2010. 17