Issuance from non-States parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention
Looking beyond the States parties to the 1951 Refugee Convention, only one country (Cuba) is
providing a machine readable travel document to refugees in the form of a certificate of identity and
travel. A further 31 countries do not offer any kind of travel document to refugees, and 14 countries
lack survey responses.
Issuance from the ICAO Member States
Of the 193 ICAO Member States, this amounts to 43 per cent not providing any type of machine
readable travel document to refugees, along with a deficit of data for 14 per cent of countries.
Linking the survey results to population figures on UNHCR’s refugee data finder, at least 17 million
refugees are hosted in a country that does not issue any type of machine readable refugee travel
document. This highlights the need for continued advocacy, capacity building and stakeholder support
so that States can issue travel documents for refugees aligned to ICAO standards.
4. Travel documents for stateless persons
Similar to refugee travel documents, travel documents for stateless persons facilitate their access
to opportunities and empower their inclusion in a global society. The types of travel documents for
stateless persons correspond to the above categories listed under refugee travel documents.
Compliance for States parties to the 1954 Statelessness Convention
There are 99 States parties to the 1954 Statelessness
Convention. UNHCR observed 35 States parties which are
issuing machine readable CTDs (MRCTDs) to stateless persons,
continuing the lower compliance trend when compared to
MRCTDs to refugees.
An additional 10 countries provided a different type of machine
readable travel document, often a foreigner passport.
This represents a larger share (10 per cent vs. 5 per cent) than
observed in MRCTDs for refugees. Only one country which is
party to the 1954 Convention issues a manual type of travel
document to stateless people.
35%
of States parties
are issuing
MRCTDs to
stateless
persons
Compliance gap in
MRCTD issuance by
States parties:
at least
47%*
* Survey data lacking from seven States
parties, and an additional 46 States do not
issue any type of travel document.
Figure 3 | Categories of Travel Documents issued by the 99 States parties to the 1954 Statelessness Convention
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