EVALUATION OF UNHCR-LED INITIATIVES TO END STATELESSNESS – FINAL REPORT – VOLUME I capacity has not yet been achieved; nor was there any indication from key informants or corporate documents that such increases were likely in the near future. Figure 10 – HQ Statelessness Section staffing – total positions and costs 5 $800,000 $700,000 4 $600,000 $500,000 3 $400,000 2 $300,000 $200,000 1 $100,000 0 $2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 Fixed-term staff 2015 2016 2017 Temporary staff 2018 2019 2020 Total staffing cost Surge capacity 75. Staff capacity on statelessness has occasionally been supplemented using the Protection Surge Capacity Project (Surge), a roster managed by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) on behalf of UNHCR.54 Following the addition of statelessness as an area of competence within the roster, the first statelessness deployments took place in 2005 – to Cambodia/Vietnam and Bangladesh. Since then, there have generally been between one to four statelessness deployments from the Surge per year – except for 2014 when there were seven deployments – with deployments lasting between one to sixteen months (the average duration of deployment over the period 2005-2020 has been eight months). As shown in Figure 11, the highest number of deployments between 2005 and 2020 were to the Asia region (14 deployments in total), followed by Africa (13 deployments). Figure 11 – Statelessness surge deployments, 2005-2020 7 Number of deployments 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 2005 2007 2008 2009 Africa 2011 Americas 2012 Asia 2013 2014 Europe 2015 2018 2019 2020 MENA 76. Statelessness Surge deployments were tightly managed. A strict process was in place for Country Operations to request additional capacity from the roster, with the need to demonstrate that deployments would contribute to developing and realizing a clear strategy on ending statelessness, rather than filling 54 The Protection Surge Capacity Project was originally designed for general protection deployments and was considered a non-emergency mechanism, since staffing needs for emergencies were covered in parallel by the emergency function. It was intended as a way of supplementing existing staff capacity with short-term, non-emergency personnel to cover priority niche areas of expertise where funding was otherwise not available. See: https://www.rescue.org/page/surge#:~:text=The%20Protection%20Surge%20Capacity%20Project,to%20protect%20refugees%20during%20crises. 22 UNHCR / May, 2021