EC/68/SC/CRP.13 Madagascar became the first State since the launch of the Campaign to amend its nationality legislation to allow mothers to confer nationality to their children on an equal basis as fathers. Similar reforms are under consideration in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Somalia. 10. Bulgaria, Costa Rica and Turkey established statelessness determination procedures during the reporting period, and France strengthened its legislation. In Brazil, a new migration law, which empowers the executive branch to establish a statelessness determination procedure and facilitates the naturalization of stateless persons, was signed by the President in May 2017. In January 2017, Ecuador passed the Organic Act on Human Mobility, which mandates the establishment of a statelessness determination procedure and facilitates naturalization for stateless persons. In Bolivia (Plurinational State of), the Ministry of Government adopted resolution 50/2016, which facilitates the naturalization of both refugees and stateless persons. UNHCR is currently providing technical assistance to Guatemala, Panama and Paraguay on similar initiatives. 11. In order to accelerate progress, revitalized efforts will be required to support States to reform laws that, for example, discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, and gender, consistent with the commitments of States made during the negotiations of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development to “leave no one behind” and “reach the furthest behind first”. C. Preventing statelessness through birth registration and the provision of identity documentation 12. Lack of birth registration creates a risk of statelessness, and therefore improving civil registration and documentation systems remained a vital activity during the reporting period. The risk of statelessness in connection with the Syria refugee situation is of particular concern, and in order to mitigate this and other risks, UNHCR coordinated a regional strategy to ensure that every Syrian refugee child’s birth is registered. The strategy includes a range of measures and innovative approaches, such as strengthened legal aid services and mobile civil status and judicial services, in partnership with the relevant authorities in countries hosting Syrian refugees. The results have been considerable: the percentage of Syrian refugee children born in the region without birth documentation fell from approximately 35 per cent in 2012 to 3 per cent in 2016. 13. In southeast Europe, UNHCR and partners have helped train local officials in charge of birth and civil registration and carried out extensive community outreach with the help of Roma mediators. In some cases, free legal assistance has been provided to help individuals acquire nationality documentation. For example, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1,588 individuals were assisted to confirm their citizenship from July 2009 to January 2017. 14. Regional initiatives to strengthen civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems are underway in Africa and Asia. Notable examples include the “Africa programme on accelerated improvement of civil registration and vital statistics”,3 and in Asia and the Pacific, the ministerial declaration to “Get everyone in the picture”4 and the “Regional action framework on civil registration and vital statistics”.5 UNHCR is a member of the Asian Regional Steering Group on CRVS and supports States with implementation of their commitments. In 2016, UNHCR provided technical advice on refugees, internally displaced persons and stateless persons for a new eLearning course on CRVS developed by the World Bank. 3 4 5 See www.apai-crvs.org. See www.getinthepicture.org/ministerial-declaration. See www.unescap.org/resources/regional-action-framework-civil-registration-and-vital-statistics-asiaand-pacific. 5