1 Introduction In December 1991, when the USSR was dissolved and was succeeded by the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), at least 280 million people lost their citizenship. Among them were nearly 60 million in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.1 Despite some of these people having a link to a successor State in Central Asia through birth or residence they have been unable to confirm or acquire citizenship of any State. This is partly due to gaps in the nationality laws and practices that were adopted by the newly independent States. Subsequently, although significant progress has been made to reduce statelessness since the period immediately after independence, migration in and out of the region coupled with the lack of effective safeguards in citizenship laws has led to additional cases of statelessness in recent years. In 2007, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees organized a regional workshop on statelessness in Dushanbe, funded by the European Union and with the participation of government and civil society representatives from Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The meeting highlighted efforts governments have made to replace former USSR passports, naturalize large numbers of stateless persons and establish a legal rights framework for permanently resident stateless persons. It was recognized, however, that some people in post-Soviet Central Asia have remained stateless for more than 15 years and that the number of persons officially registered as stateless in most cases does not reflect the real numbers of stateless persons in each country. Delegates agreed that it was important to review existing statistics on stateless persons and expressed interest in targeting information campaigns at areas with large numbers of people who are potentially stateless, to inform them of their rights, and ways to regularise their status. Participants also agreed on the importance of examining gaps in nationality legislation that may result in statelessness and of considering accession to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. In the four years that have passed since the Dushanbe workshop, progress has been made by some Central Asian governments to address statelessness through: the systematic identification of stateless persons and persons at risk of statelessness; legal reform to reduce the risk of occurrence of new cases of statelessness occurring; and the naturalization of stateless persons. In May 2009, with funding from the European Commission Aeneas programme “Financial and technical assistance to third countries in the field of migration and asylum”, in May 2009 UNHCR launched a project on prevention and reduction of statelessness and protection of stateless persons in Central Asia. The project aimed to identify and disseminate good practices in addressing statelessness in the region, as well as remaining gaps in law and administrative practice. Studies relating to the respective legal and administrative frameworks on nationality and stateless persons were carried out in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Information was gathered through interviews with government officials; reports from UN agencies and NGOs and interviews with stateless people. The results of this research were discussed with government representatives and UN and NGO partners in national workshops held in September and October of 2009. The project culminated in a Regional Conference on Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness and the Protection of Stateless Persons in Central Asia, co-organized with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan on 9-10 December 2009. This regional report is based on the country studies carried out by UNHCR in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. It is structured along the lines of UNHCR’s 2008 publication “Statelessness: An Analytical Framework for Identification, Prevention, and Reduction”. 1 Mikhail Tulskii, Naselenie SNG k nachalu 20003 goda – 277,5 milliona chelovek, Demoscope Weekly, Moscow, No 103104, 3-16 March 2003, available at http://www.demoscope.ru/weekly/2003/0103/analit04.php. ~3~