6.  Birth certificates are the key supporting documents for citizenship applications in Kenya. Birth registration is a two-step process: first, parents need a birth notification from the health care facility where the child is born and from the local administrative authority for those born at home. Second, parents need to apply for a birth certificate at the civil registrar’s office within six months, during which time no supporting document is required apart from birth notification. Late birth registration applications (those done after six months) are at the discretion of the principal registrar and require the submission of additional supporting documents, such as a passport or identity card which stateless persons do not have. The lack of information to register children in a timely manner leads to heightened risks of childhood statelessness. In addition, childhood statelessness is exacerbated by the limited number of birth registration centers in the sub-counties, extreme poverty among affected persons, the higher cost of late birth registration, ethnic discrimination, and fear of authorities due to past expulsion of stateless communities (UNHCR 2017b). 7.  Positive steps are being taken by the government to improve civil registration. In January 2019, the government established the National Integrated Identity Management System (NIIMS) with the purpose of integrating and managing a central population database.13 In May 2019, the government began to collect data from all persons in the country, including non-Kenyans, with the aim of issuing a personal identifier known as Huduma Namba, which would provide access to services that nonKenyans were not entitled to before. At the same time, the Civil Registration Services intensified its efforts of increasing birth registration through the Rapid Results Initiative. The GoK, in collaboration with UNHCR, UNICEF, and the NGO Haki na Sheria Initiative, organized mobile birth registration exercises in 11 Early Childhood Development Centers, issuing birth certificates to 1,524 children. 8.  The GoK’s commitment to resolving statelessness has resulted in a pledge to ensure the protection of stateless persons, the naturalization of the Makonde community, and an agreement to naturalize qualifying members of the Shona community. During the Global Refugee Forum in December 2019, the GoK pledged to ensure the protection of stateless persons, committing to implementing a new act that would provide safeguards to prevent statelessness by 2020. Likewise, it pledged to accede to the UN statelessness conventions. Furthermore, in 2016, the Makonde community14 was recognized as Kenyan nationals, officially making them Kenya’s 43rd tribe. In 2019, at the Ministerial Conference on the Eradication of Statelessness in the Great Lakes Region, the GoK agreed to expand this initiative to qualifying members of the Shona community. 9.  The Shona community comprises more than 3,500 stateless persons whose ancestors arrived in Kenya from ­modern-day Zimbabwe and Zambia between the 1950s and 1970s. According to the Shona elders, when they arrived in Kenya, they did not plan to return to their country of origin, as the gaining of independence by Kenya motivated them to settle and continue their missionary work in the country. Upon arrival, the Shona were issued certificates of registration under the Alien Restriction Act. However, a change in the Registration of Persons Act of 1978 prevented them from accessing identity cards. As a result, most of those who were among the first wave of arrivals do not hold valid legal identity documents. At the same time, Zimbabwe and Zambia do not consider them as nationals since many 13 The database contains information of all Kenyan citizens and foreign nationals residing in Kenya and serves as a reference point for ease of service delivery to the people in Kenya. 14 An ethnic minority with origins in northern Mozambique who moved to Kenya before independence. Background and Objectives 10183_Shona Report.indd 3  3 12/14/20 2:56 PM