EVALUATION OF UNHCR-LED INITIATIVES TO END STATELESSNESS – FINAL REPORT – VOLUME I capacities and a particular emphasis is therefore to be expected in terms of the organization playing to its strengths. It does, however, leave gaps and questions about the role that other UN and non-UN organizations could usefully play to address statelessness (see Section 5.2 on partnerships and cooperation). "We need to start asking questions about how are stateless people eating, living, going to school. What can we do to start making an impact beyond changing laws? An operational shift is required, we need to think about livelihoods, for example, and access to basic services for stateless people. We need to become more programmeoriented in the way we work on statelessness.” – Key informant interview 106. Similarly, the evaluation found that UNHCR’s response to AGDrelated issues had focused heavily on legal drivers of statelessness, notably discriminatory nationality laws and laws and policies that increase the risk of statelessness for children. While UNHCR’s AGD policy states that implementation modalities should be “designed and delivered to respond to the different risks, needs, and capacities of diverse women, men, girls and boys”, the evaluation found little concrete evidence of programmes being tailored to these needs. Some key informants provided examples of gender blind approaches, despite working in contexts with demonstrated differences in needs based on gender. "There is definitely a big gender 107. Case-studies and interviews highlighted some examples of imbalance. What could we do in terms successful public advocacy and awareness-raising. For of this? I think we can provide support example, efforts to inform the general population in Kenya to all those that fall under criterial of through the #IBelong Campaign are perceived to have our assistance.” increased public support for addressing the rights of certain stateless populations and encouraged Kenyan Government “We don’t target women in particular, action. However, UNHCR has not made substantial we provide legal services to men and investments globally in its public advocacy and anybody who seeks support.” – Key communications, and did not have a dedicated headquarters informant interviews staff member in DER until the addition of one temporary communications position in 2019, nor has it consistently communicated about statelessness in all regions. Internal and external stakeholders described UNHCR as risk-averse in its public advocacy on statelessness, though in some interviews and open-ended survey responses UNHCR staff suggested that this is due to lack of familiarity, perceived complexity of statelessness, and staff not having direct contact with stateless populations to better understand their situation. Given that discriminatory practices and beliefs are key driver of statelessness public advocacy is an important tool for UNHCR and partners to try to shift socio-cultural attitudes and create a more enabling environments. Yet, from 2012 to 2019 UNHCR only spent USD 5.9 million under Pillar 2 on improving public attitudes towards stateless persons, 83 percent of which was in just five offices (U.S. multi-country office, Cote d’Ivoire, Brussels regional representation office, Myanmar, and the Democratic Republic of Congo in descending order). However, this does not include expenditures of headquarters’ units, such as work with media, social media, and Goodwill Ambassadors, as these budgets are not quantifiable or recorded by pillar. 108. One of UNHCR’s roles in leading the Campaign is to monitor and follow up on the actions and pledges by States towards preventing and eliminating statelessness. External Relations Officers were asked in the survey to identify how operations communicate with States about their pledges and actions. They most frequently cited direct meetings with national government focal points and awareness campaigns, followed by active capacity building support as the most frequent follow-up methods. External Relations Officers were also asked in the survey how effective the GAP is in providing opportunities and frameworks for communicating about statelessness in their country. 63 percent of these respondents said the GAP was moderately to highly effective in providing communications opportunities while the remaining 37 percent were neutral. 5.2 Key enabling and hindering factors for UNHCR efforts Finding 9: 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. These factors can be influenced by the availability of data on stateless populations, social and cultural beliefs and attitudes, government capacities, crises and key events, and diplomatic efforts of other states - both positively and negatively. 34 UNHCR / May, 2021