IDLO AND UNHCR Box 8: Legal identity in Malaysia In West Malaysia, persons of Indian-Tamil origin who originally came to Malaysia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries experienced mass displacement following the closures of many rubber plantations beginning around 1980. As a result, many faced difficulty accessing birth registration and have since encountered barriers to applying for identity documents. The government launched the ‘My Daftar Campaign’ in 2011 to identify and assist undocumented persons by conducting mobile registration campaigns. Through the Campaign, thousands of birth certificates and national identity cards were issued and, as of 2017, these registration efforts had ended the statelessness experienced by more than 4,400 people. Failure to address statelessness hinders development. Evidence indicates that more inclusive societies are more prosperous, effective, and resilient, and better positioned to effectively manage and allocate public resources.46 The persistence of statelessness among any constituency in a country’s population represents an acute form of exclusion. While less evidence exists on economic costs of the non-participation of stateless people than for other excluded groups (for example, women), countries with large numbers of stateless persons unable to effectively participate in the economy do not make efficient use of available human resources and economic potential. Nationality is also an enabler to realise other rights, meaning that the lack of nationality prevents people from fully participating in and contributing to society. Stateless children, for example, face significant challenges with respect to accessing education and receiving certifications for school completion. Ensuring one’s right to a nationality is a vital step to enabling equal access to education in the first place. Even as achievements in accelerating action on the SDGs will result in positive outcomes for stateless persons, failures will inevitably exacerbate the problems faced by this population. For example, failure to mitigate and adapt to climate change, which poses a significant threat to sustainable development, will significantly increase the risks of statelessness.47 Even the seemingly mundane risk of document loss during such an event can put millions of people at risk of statelessness. Statelessness may result in situations where individuals are unable to prove their nationality due to loss SDG of documentation, or the inability to obtain replacement documentation due to challenges in accessing consular services. Relevant target Link to Statelessness and the Rule of Law Target 4.1: Free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education for all girls Improves the living conditions of stateless persons, as it ensures that they have access to basic rights Target 5.1: All forms of discrimination against all women and girls ended Relevant to addressing the issue of sex discrimination in nationality laws, which continues to be a major cause of statelessness globally Target 10.3: Equal opportunity ensured and inequalities reduced Relevant to addressing discrimination in nationality matters and arbitrary deprivation of nationality, which lies at the root of some of the largest and most protracted situations of statelessness Target 16.b: Non-discriminatory laws and policies promoted and enforced; target 16.3: Rule of law promoted at the national and international levels and equal access to justice for all; target 16.9: Legal identity provided for all, including birth registration Enforcement of non-discriminatory laws and legal empowerment are crucial for stateless people to realise their rights; provision of birth registration and nationality documentation is directly relevant for the prevention and reduction of statelessness Target 17.18: Support to developing countries provided to increase availability of data Improved statistical data on stateless populations in developing countries is important to gain a better understanding of the scale of the problem 13