AHMR African Human Mobilty Review - Volume 8 No 3, SEP-DEC 2022 the creation of conditions conducive to the growth of human self-esteem through social, political, and economic systems and institutions that promote human dignity and respect. The third aspect presupposes increasing people’s freedom by enlarging their range of choice variables, such as goods and services.8 The reality that stateless persons co-exist on the margins of society globally, and remain unheard, unnoticed, and neglected, challenges the fundamental principles of the global development agenda and human rights, as advanced by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)9 over the past seventy years. Statelessness has been attributed to several causes, ranging from discrimination in nationality laws (based on racial, ethnic, religious, gender, or linguistic minority status), to challenges of birth registration and documentary proof of identity. Other factors include state succession, conflicts between nationality laws, wars and displacement, and lack of safeguards to avert statelessness in nationality laws. Displacement may serve as a cause and consequence of statelessness. When induced by human rights abuses and abysmal development outcomes against vulnerable and deprived populations, statelessness may propel voluntary movement or forced displacement of people across international borders. Likewise, protracted displacement prompted by irregular migration may also result in statelessness.10 Moreover, occurring at different times, and in different contexts, all regions of the world are confronted by problems inducing statelessness. For example, members of Europe’s Roma community were rendered stateless when the post-World War I (1914–1918) new state system could not accommodate them. Furthermore, the Palestinians, the Tamils of Sri Lanka, and the Kurds across the Middle East have become stateless due to empire collapse, occupation, or decolonisation.11 In Africa, groups at risk of statelessness fall into five categories. These include: (a) orphans, abandoned infants, and other vulnerable children, including those trafficked for various purposes; (b) people of mixed parentage; (c) border populations, including nomadic and pastoralist ethnic groups who regularly cross borders, as well as those affected by border disputes or transfers of territory; (d) migrants — historical or contemporary — without (valid) documentation of nationality, especially their descendants, refugees, and internally displaced persons (IDPs); and (e) those deported or returned to a country ‘of origin’ where they have limited, or no current ties.12 This study reveals that states’ unwillingness or inability to provide accurate data, inadequate mechanisms for registering stateless persons, and the lack of Michael P Todaro & Stephen C Smith Economic Development 6 ed (2014) 12. United Nations (UN) 'Universal Declaration of Human Rights' (1948) 4, available at https://www.un.org/sites/un2. un.org/files/2021/03/udhr.pdf 10 UNDG op cit note 6 at 5. 11 UNHCR 'Citizenship and statelessness in the member states of the Southern African Development Community' (2020) 7 SSRN Electronic Journal, available at https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3783295 12 African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) 'The right to nationality in Africa' African Union (AU) (2015). 8 9 58