For many years, Chad has been at the crossroads of regional crisis – today, it hosts more than one million forcibly displaced people, including refugees from conflicts in Cameroon, the Central African Republic and Sudan. Such overwhelming numbers speak to dire vulnerability throughout the country, especially among children who’ve been forced to flee, or were born while their parents were refugees. In order to address these historic challenges facing forcibly displaced populations – as well as close longstanding birth registration gaps – the government of Chad committed at the 2019 HighLevel Segment on Statelessness to take decisive action. Chad’s pledge was to “improve access to birth registration procedures, including late birth registration, to ensure universal birth registration.” The Government of Chad took quick action to transform these pledges into action. Since 2019 – through the National Agency for Secure Documents (ANATS) and in close collaboration with UNHCR – it has issued more than 120,000 birth certificates to forcibly displaced people. This includes 42,945 birth certificates provided to refugee, internally displaced and host-community children in 2023. As regional crises intensify, it’s more important than ever to ensure that forcibly displaced people are protected from statelessness and its resulting marginalization, According to the inter-agency protection monitoring system Project 21, a significant number of those seeking safety in Chad arrive with little to no identification documents, increasing their risks of statelessness. In 2023, 22 percent of households reported not having any documents. Alongside UNHCR and other partners, the Government of Chad is continuing birth registration and other measures to help prevent and address statelessness, in particular among vulnerable communities. Other notable achievements: • In 2023, the Kyrgyz Republic ensured that all children born in the country can be registered at birth, irrespective of the documentation status of their parents. • The Government of Rwanda made two pledges regarding refugee birth and civil registration in 2019. The country instituted a new civil registration and vital statistics system in 2020, linked to the National Population Registry, that allowed for birth registration to take place at health facilities. As a result, 99 percent of refugees under five years of age have had their birth registered and certified. • Amendments to the Law on Civil Registry in North Macedonia in 2023 guaranteed birth registration for all children born in the country, regardless of the nationality or documentation status of the parents. • During the ongoing war, Ukraine has made significant efforts to ensure people’s access to civil status and identity documentation, including remote birth registration and provision of a mobile documentation service in host countries to acquire, exchange or renew civil status and identity documentation. • Through reforms undertaken in 2015 and 2020, Montenegro has introduced cost-free judicial procedures for late birth registration of individuals born outside of the formal healthcare system, as well as new birth registration practices for the immediate registration of children abandoned by mothers or whose mothers are missing identification documents. • The 2019 civil status census in the Republic of Congo identified 199,400 people without birth certificates. Starting in 2020, its government rolled out mobile registration initiatives to issue birth certificates and identity cards to children and adults, while also conducting a national awareness campaign on the importance of birth registration. • The Government of Tajikistan finalized the first round of amendments to its Civil Registration Law in 2019, introducing free birth registration within three months of birth, part of a larger reform aimed at enhancing documentation accessibility and preventing statelessness from birth. • The League of Arab States adopted the Arab Declaration for Belonging and Legal Identity in 2024. The Declaration provides a robust framework to respond to challenges posed by conflict, displacement and statelessness in the region, including through improved access to birth registration, efforts to prevent childhood statelessness and strengthened legal identity rights, especially for women. #IBELONG 33