Turkmen Government’s initiative to resolve statelessness and collaboration with UNHCR With the experience gained from the 2004-2005 Refugee Registration Campaign, the Turkmen Government took the initiative to identify those of undetermined nationality in Turkmenistan, with the goal of regularizing their status and reducing statelessness. Government officials adopted a plan to identify the following categories of individuals: nn Those who possessed Turkmen nationality pursuant to the provisions of the 1992 Nationality Law. nn Those who possessed the nationality of another country, including individuals who held valid passports or certificates from foreign authorities attesting to their nationality of another State. nn Those who were stateless. Depending on an individual’s circumstances, the goal of the identification and registration campaign was to provide documentation confirming Turkmen nationality of those who possessed it; grant permanent residence status to those who were nationals of other countries; and provide stateless persons the opportunity to apply for naturalization in Turkmenistan. The Turkmen authorities had already begun to identify and register persons of undetermined nationality in 2007. They adopted a streamlined process whereby all individuals whose bio-data was registered would concurrently fill out relevant applications to establish their nationality, regularize their status or apply for naturalization. The Government established mobile groups of migration officials to travel to settlements, register individuals and fill out application forms electronically, which, once completed on the spot, would be printed, signed and filed. Turkmenistan initiated this programme with the skills, experience and materials it had acquired from working with UNHCR on the 2004-2005 Refugee Registration Campaign, as well as some additional material support. Between 2007 and 2010, the Government registered approximately 4,000 persons with undetermined nationality. The authorities, however, had not been able to reach all of the affected population and needed additional resources not only to identify and register all relevant individuals, but also to conduct the necessary analysis of their individual cases to resolve their irregular status. After initiating this identification and registration drive, the authorities approached UNHCR to discuss how to increase the scale of their efforts and improve related processes. In 2008, UNHCR began to contribute to the Inter-Ministerial Working Group on the Improvement of Legislation, an inter-agency forum to develop recommendations for the improvement and harmonization of legislation and administrative practices related to refugees and stateless persons. In February 2009, a Roundtable on Statelessness, organized by UNHCR and the National Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, brought together government officials who exchanged ideas on solutions to statelessness in Turkmenistan. UNHCR then convened a Regional Statelessness Conference for Central Asia in December 2009, which was held in Ashgabat. As a result of these capacity-building activities, the Turkmen Government adopted the Action Plan for Joint Activities on Prevention and Reduction of Statelessness in Turkmenistan in December 2010. This created a framework for collaboration with UNHCR on completing the identification and registration of individuals with undetermined nationality and then reviewing and revising the relevant laws. 2011 identification and registration campaign The 2011 identification and registration campaign (2011 Campaign) was designed to scale up and complete the Government’s efforts from 2007 to 2010. It was undertaken as a joint initiative between the Turkmen Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), the State Migration Service of Turkmenistan (SMST), the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of National Security and UNHCR. Additional stakeholders brought into the project included UNHCR’s national NGO partner, Keik Okara, which operated legal clinics and assisted individuals through the registration process; local authorities and village administrators, who assisted in sensitizing the targeted populations and facilitated the work of the registration teams; and the embassies of CIS countries, which confirmed whether persons identified through the registration process were nationals of their States. 28 CAMPAIGN TO END STATELESSNESS WITHIN 10 YE ARS