First and foremost, it has become clear stateless people are among those most adversely affected by the pandemic. Chris Nash, Director Message from our Director It’s fair to say that 2020 has been an exceptional year. In the face of the pandemic, ENS has been determined to maintain a positive and outward-looking focus to continue our work. But we have also had to accept it is not business as usual. We have adapted and learnt valuable lessons that will improve our future impact. This report, covering both 2019 and 2020, offers a moment to reflect on our achievements both before and during the pandemic, but also to look to the future beyond it. First and foremost, it has become clear stateless people are among those most adversely affected by the pandemic. They are also often the first to react on the ground and support their communities. It is critical that stateless people and affected communities are heard and better resourced. Working together with stateless people, we seek to address the protection gaps exposed by the pandemic. Next month, we will publish new research assessing the intersecting impacts of COVID-19 and governments’ responses to it, providing key recommendations for reform. When the pandemic reached Europe just over 12 months ago, we quickly adapted to our new virtual world. We were determined not to slow down in pursuit of our strategic objectives or to vacate advocacy spaces where we felt that we needed to be heard. In place of a planned major regional conference in Alicante last May, we held a series of online webinars. These attracted combined registrations from over 1700 participants and allowed us to engage new audiences. Working remotely has helped us make events accessible to stateless people and affected communities, some of whom lack identity or travel documents. Our new website, launched in November last year, was designed to improve understanding of statelessness, mobilise new audiences and to connect stateless people with legal representation. We have also found new ways of communicating virtually with our members, and supporting them with the challenges they have faced in maintaining legal advice and other services. We are very proud of the continued impact that we have been able to achieve together despite the pandemic. We have expanded and restructured our Secretariat, introducing three new staff posts and strengthening our ability to coordinate action across our Network. We have seen our membership grow to over 160, including 14 stateless people and community-led organisations who have joined over the last two years. Our Statelessness Index continues to provide a strong platform and evidence base for our calls for law and policy reform across Europe. It now covers 27 countries, and has been accessed by over 19,000 users since being launched in 2018. Through our #StatelessJourneys initiative, injected with new resourcing from Comic Relief, we continue to mainstream statelessness in asylum and migration policy debates, including ongoing negotiations on the EU Asylum & Migration Pact. We are also seizing new opportunities to further influence policy towards addressing childhood statelessness, as well as Roma and other marginalised groups affected by statelessness. We are excited to be developing a new litigation database, as we recognise that part of the fight to end statelessness must happen through the courts. All of this enables us to move through 2021 with increased energy and confidence despite the difficulties we all face. As always, this is only possible due to the incredible engagement and support of our members, donors and other partners. We really appreciate this and look forward to being able to see you all in person again soon. Chris Nash, Director