10 Actions to End Statelessness HOW CAN UNHCR HELP? Major Activities: 1. Support States to identify legal, procedural and practical obstacles, including those encountered at the community level, to register births. 2. Promote birth registration including by facilitating access to procedures at the community level, deploying mobile teams to address existing deficits and integrating birth registration with other public programmes such as those relating to childbirth, maternal-infant care, immunization and education. 3. Complement the efforts of UNICEF, UN regional commissions, UNFPA, WHO, UNDP, the World Bank, regional development banks and bilateral donors, including in the context of the UN Development Assistance Framework, to promote and provide technical support for birth registration and to improve civil registration and vital statistics systems. 4. Support the provision of information, legal aid and documentation campaigns to assist stateless individuals and individuals at risk of statelessness with applications for birth registration. For populations which are not otherwise of concern, UNHCR will only become engaged where it is likely in the specific context that nationality may be questioned, giving rise to a heightened risk of statelessness. Given their expertise in birth registration, partnership with other UN, regional and non-governmental organisations is required. 24 UNHCR > WHAT EXISTING CIRCUMSTANCES CAN FACILITATE IMPLEMENTATION OF THIS ACTION? • • • • • Pledges on civil registration by States at UNHCR’s 2011 Ministerial Meeting, commitments made in the context of the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council and recommendations made to particular States by UN human rights treaty bodies and special procedures. UNICEF, UN regional commissions, UNFPA, WHO, UNDP, the World Bank, regional development banks and bilateral donors all have dedicated significant resources to addressing these issues in recent years. Birth registration will likely be reflected in the post-2015 development agenda. Virtually all States are party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and/or the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which require that every child is registered at birth. A number of regional intergovernmental initiatives are already in place to improve civil registration and vital statistics (e.g. the African Programme on Accelerated Improvement of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Africa, the Regional Strategic Plan for the Improvement of CRVS in Asia and the Pacific, the call by the Organisation of American States for universal birth registration by 2015). G LO B A L AC T I O N P L A N TO E N D S TAT E L E S S N E S S : 2 0 1 4 – 2 0 2 4