A SHARED AGENDA FOR CHANGE: MOBILISING KNOWLEDGE, SOLIDARITY AND JOINT ACTION TO ADDRESS STATELESSNESS The learnings, insights, aspirations and commitments expressed at the conference, offer a shared agenda for change, that is rooted in the principles of collective action, solidarity and resilience. Here are the main takeaways in this regard: AS YOU THINK OF OTHERS FAR AWAY, THINK OF YOURSELF (SAY: “IF ONLY I WERE A CANDLE IN THE DARK”) From the poem “Think of Others” by Mahmoud Darwish Our Shared Agenda for Change must emerge through those impacted by statelessness and discriminatory nationality laws, to meet their needs, interests and aspirations. Civil society spaces must centre, be led by and accountable to stateless people and their communities. This requires creating, sharing and ceding space, voice and resources; journeying with, supporting and strengthening the skills and resilience of stateless people and their communities. Resourcing the field is of crucial importance, with the biggest priority being the sustainable resourcing of stateless-led groups. We must continue to engage donors to raise awareness about statelessness, push for its prioritisation and mainstreaming, and encourage them to allocate more funding. We also need to hold donors accountable, to ensure that funds are accessible to stateless-led groups that face so many structural barriers to accessing funding. The statelessness sector has undergone a remarkable evolution over the last decade, with significant growth, a more sophisticated understanding and coherent strategies and approaches to addressing the issue. We have many successes to celebrate. We are also seeing the beginnings of a meaningful transformation of a ‘field’ into a ‘community’. This comes with recognition that we need each other and must actively invest in each other, and in strengthening our solidarity, community and trust, to ensure we build our resilience and sustainability. It was never adequate or accurate to describe statelessness as exclusively or largely a legal or technical issue. It is a multi-disciplinary challenge with significant social, economic, political and personal implications. It is also an intersectional issue which cuts across all social-justice fields and identity groups. The research and change agenda must reflect this, and move beyond mere ‘legal’ solutions, including those which focus only on securing nationality status. This requires engaging with political narratives of ‘othering’, addressing structural discrimination and connecting with other social justice movements to build solidarities across borders and issues. We see the emergence of shared values and objectives, which we must foster, protect and pursue. The Manifesto of the Global Movement Against Statelessness articulates many of these values. While we won’t always agree, we must pursue change in ways that acknowledge our different roles and priorities, while grounding ourselves in shared values and principles, including those of equality, solidarity, respect, dignity and empowerment. A vibrant statelessness ecosystem is emerging, with key players including the Global Movement Against Statelessness, Global Alliance to End Statelessness, Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights, various Regional Statelessness Networks and Coalitions, global actors like the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, academic institutes such as the Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, UN actors including UNHCR and OHCHR, national and grassroots groups. At the centre, are many stateless-led groups that are working at local, national, regional and global levels. There needs to be even stronger collaboration between these different groups, to drive forward a more impactful research agenda, create spaces for solidarity and drive our shared agenda for change. The arts are an important vehicle through which to build and share knowledge, strengthen solidarity and pursue change. We must collaborate meaningfully with artists and centre working through the arts to achieve change. The genocide of the Palestinian people and previously, the Rohingya, are sobering reminders of how statelessness is integrally connected to the worst atrocities that humans inflict on each other. As a field, we are dutybound to highlight these connections and articulate why statehood and nationality are essential to securing liberation and justice. We must also continue to stand in solidarity with the victims of apartheid, crimes against humanity and genocide, and those in entrenched situations of statelessness, demanding accountability, justice and peace. Further thematic takeaways on ‘knowledge’, ‘solidarity’ and ‘change’ are set out at the end of this report.