POLICY BRIEF > The Journey of Shona in Kenya / October 2024 assistance in designing and implementing these frameworks, fostering environments that allow all individuals to contribute to and benefit from national development. 2. Support economic integration and empowerment of the Shona community through targeted financial inclusion programs and skills development initiatives. The Government of Kenya, in collaboration with development partners, is encouraged to implement tailored financial inclusion strategies to help the newly recognized Shona citizens access credit, savings, and insurance products that are crucial for business growth and household resilience. Establishing entrepreneurship training programs, mentorship networks, and providing access to capital for small and medium-sized enterprises would empower the Shona community to leverage their skills in wood carving, basket weaving, and other economic activities. Additionally, promoting employment opportunities in the formal sector for Shona individuals through job placement services and partnerships with the private sector will ensure that the community’s transition to full citizenship is accompanied by tangible improvements in income and welfare. 3. Reaffirm and expand Kenya’s commitment to eradicating statelessness by adopting a comprehensive national strategy. Building on the success of granting citizenship to the Makonde, Shona, and Pemba communities, a National Action Plan to identify and resolve remaining cases of statelessness, including the estimated 9,800 individuals who remain stateless, offers many benefits. This strategy should include amending the relevant Sections of the Kenya Citizenship and Immigration Act to remove the time-limitation for registration of stateless persons and align the definition of a stateless person with the definition in the 1954 Convention; acceding to the two UN statelessness conventions and ratification of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Specific Aspects of the Right to a Nationality and the Eradication of Statelessness in Africa; enhancing birth registration systems to prevent future statelessness; simplifying procedures for nationality application and documentation; and implementing community outreach programs to raise awareness about the rights and entitlements of citizenship. The Kenyan government is also encouraged to continue its leadership on this issue by advocating for regional and international cooperation to address statelessness, including sharing best practices and lessons learned from its national experience. 4. Promote international collaboration and investment to support stateless populations in gaining nationality and legal identity and accessing essential services. Governments, international organizations, and development agencies should work together to ensure stateless individuals receive the support needed to obtain nationality and legal documentation. This includes nationality law and policy changes enabling stateless people to acquire nationality, investing in robust and inclusive civil registration systems, conducting community-based identification campaigns, and facilitating cross-border collaboration to address statelessness among migrant populations. Providing technical and financial assistance to countries with high numbers of stateless individuals would further enable the implementation of comprehensive registration and citizenship programs. The new Global Alliance to End Statelessness provides a multi-stakeholder platform to strengthen these joint efforts. 5. Expand efforts to generate evidence on the impacts of statelessness and post-citizenship integration globally, with a focus on Kenya. Stakeholders should invest in continued, longitudinal studies to track the Shona community’s socioeconomic progress over time and take advantage of the pre- and post-citizenship data that is already available, enabling a better understanding of post-citizenship outcomes. Additionally, research should be expanded to include the Makonde, Pemba, Rundi and other communities alongside the national population, providing comparative insights www.unhcr.org 11