EVALUATION OF UNHCR-LED INITIATIVES TO END STATELESSNESS – FINAL REPORT – VOLUME I UNHCR resource mobilization efforts have not substantially increased the availability of funding for statelessness. In 2016 UNHCR launched the first ever special appeal that focused on statelessness and sought (unsuccessfully) to draw attention to the funding needed for implementation of the #IBelong Campaign. Earmarked contributions for statelessness work have been limited, totaling slightly over USD 58 million between 2010 and 2020. Seeds for Solutions funding was found to have a positive effect in scaling up UNHCRs operational work on statelessness While experienced and appropriately skilled personnel are UNHCR’s best asset, the evaluation found that there are few dedicated staff positions on statelessness within UNHCR (3 in HQ and between 10-17 in regional bureaus and country operations). The majority of Representatives, Protection Officers and External Relations staff spent less than 25% of their time on statelessness. Well appreciated reinforcements, through the global protection surge capacity roster for statelessness work, have come to an end in 2020 when the joint Surge project with the IRC ended. While a significant focus of UNHCR’s work on statelessness has been on capacity building of partners (national governments in particular), there has been less emphasis on learning and capacity building of its own workforce. The only dedicated training on statelessness within UNHCR is an online self-study module that was developed in 2012 (now out of date) which has been complemented by other ad hoc external training. This patchwork of training and learning support may not be able to ensure growing demands for capacity, and inadequately target staff in different functions and at different levels of responsibility within the organization. Key enabling and hindering factors Political will, awareness of statelessness, and strong partnerships across government, civil society and other organizations are the most important influencing factors that can enable or hinder government progress against statelessness. Finding key entry points among supportive government officials and parliamentarians and building their awareness and understanding, allowed some operations to build greater political will to act. Political incentives can also be generated through increasing public awareness and support, including the awareness of stateless or at-risk populations themselves. Partnerships across government and between external actors were credited with building momentum for positive change, influencing key decisions, and expanding government capacities. A considerable number of internal and external stakeholders described UNHCR as risk-averse in terms of public advocacy on statelessness, though in some case study interviews and open-ended survey responses UNHCR staff suggested that low levels of public communications on statelessness are also due to lack of staff familiarity, perceived complexity of statelessness issues, and staff not having direct contact with stateless populations to help develop a better understanding of their situation. Given that discriminatory practices and beliefs are key drivers of statelessness, public advocacy is a potentially important tool for UNHCR and partners to try to shift sociocultural attitudes and create a more enabling environment for systems and legal changes. Key informants and documents repeatedly emphasized data gaps and challenges in improving the reliability and quality of data. A lack of data can limit UNHCR’s ability to communicate and advocate around the issue of statelessness, whereas good data can “open eyes and doors”. In this regard, many UNHCR operations have invested in statelessness mapping studies to fill gaps in official data sources. However, the evaluation found that while augmenting official data collection can support building awareness and understanding of statelessness, it can be an expensive short-term solution for a systemic problem – requiring technical expertise and management support. The evaluation found that ongoing efforts and partnerships (UNSC, World Bank) at global level to work on common standards for statelessness statistics and statistical models for estimating statelessness offer a more sustainable model for improving statistics on statelessness over the longer term. Conclusions UNHCR and partners have positively impacted on the lives of many stateless people and those at risk of statelessness, evidenced by the number of people that have acquired nationality, stories about the value of gaining citizenship, and the many good and innovative initiatives to prevent and resolve statelessness. By working together, UNHCR and partners have successfully raised awareness of statelessness and begun to build the necessary political will and capacity to prevent and resolve statelessness. Since 2001 there is a vi UNHCR / May, 2021