face discrimination in birth registration and nationality processes that the states should address. Birth registration should be guaranteed to all children born in the territories, a guarantee that is lacking in Colombia and not fully implemented in Brazil or Chile, and countries should take specific steps to ensure full implementation. Government entities with complementary or shared competences should coordinate their efforts. Based on the research conducted for this report, it appears that communication among competent government agencies is sparse. Improving inter-agency cooperation would help address administrative barriers preventing children’s access to nationality and prevent one from entity contradicting, or duplicating the efforts of another. Law and practice at the domestic level must be harmonized with binding international norms. Incorporation of an international obligation into nationality legislation falls short if domestic procedures are not adjusted accordingly. The findings of this report indicate that it is urgent that international law inform the day-to-day implementation of nationality laws in American states. States must harmonize legal frameworks as well as administrative procedures, service delivery, and trainings to officers, to ensure that international norms and principles, including the best interests of the child, inform law, procedure, and decisions to guarantee the right to nationality and the prevention of statelessness. Every country in the Americas should implement nationality procedures that fully guarantee the right to nationality as established by Article 20 of the American Convention on Human Rights, one of the strictest treaties with respect to statelessness safeguards. Colombia’s laws clearly fall short of these standards. Colombia must grant access to Colombian nationality to stateless children born in the territory automatically, without requiring naturalization of children not entitled to nationality in other states and without withholding nationality from children who cannot prove they have no access to another nationality. Current policy creates insurmountable obstacles for many of the parents of children most likely to be affected. Regional forums should be used to address shortcomings in documentation of identity processes, especially in border regions. There are several regional and sub-regional forums where governments of neighboring countries regularly meet, and these tend to be underutilized platforms for exchanging good practices, coordinating efforts to document populations and to ensure a facilitated access the right to nationality for children, and addressing older generations who have remained undocumented and unable to prove their identity and nationality. BORN IN THE AMERICAS 83