ECONOMIC COMMUNITY OF WEST AFRICAN STATES (ECOWAS) PLAN OF ACTION ON ERADICATION OF STATELESSNESS 2017 – 2024 spirit of Abidjan. The Plan of Action entails support measures that ECOWAS and UNHCR can provide to Member States in accordance with Articles 22 and 25 of the Abidjan Declaration; it includes measures that ECOWAS will adopt to follow-up on the requests made by Member States in the Abidjan Declaration and it spells out mechanisms for monitoring the implementation of the Abidjan Declaration. STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE 1: To ensure compliance with relevant legal, policy and institutional frameworks for eradicating statelessness ECOWAS Member States recognized that bringing nationality laws in line with international standards on statelessness is a key element in the prevention and reduction of statelessness. To that end, accession to the two Statelessness Conventions and domestication of the Conventions are crucial steps. Two years after the adoption of the Abidjan Declaration, twelve out of the fifteen ECOWAS Member States have acceded to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons,1 and eleven Member States are party to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.2 In two other States accession is currently underway.3 Recognizing the necessity of harmonizing the nationality laws in the sub-region and ECOWAS’s pivotal role in eradication and prevention of statelessness, ECOWAS, in collaboration with UNHCR and the competent institutions of the African Union, will assist Member States by adopting common standards that will guide the reform of nationality legislation of West African States, incl uding inter alia the removal of discriminatory provisions in the transmission of nationality and the inclusion of safeguards against statelessness to ensure that every child acquires a nationality at birth. Seven Member States are already in the process of revising their legislation to bring it in line with international standards on statelessness. Objective 1.1: Accession to the international conventions on statelessness Activities Performance Responsible Indicator Authority(ies) 1.1.1 Undertake sensitization and # of campaigns ECOWAS information campaigns in Member States carried out Commission on the need to accede to the UNHCR International Conventions on WACSOF Source of Verification Workshop reports Timeframe 2018 Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Guinea, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Sierra Leone,Mali, Guinea Bissau Benin, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Guinea, Liberia, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Mali, Guinea Bissau 3 Ghana and Burkina Faso. 1 2 2