EVALUATION OF UNHCR-LED INITIATIVES TO END STATELESSNESS – FINAL REPORT – VOLUME I few noted that they felt marginalized at the HLS given its understandable focus on governments and were relegated to a singular side event. No formal mechanisms were identified by which a coalition of partners is engaged in setting campaign direction, assessing progress, identifying priorities, or developing plans for collective action. "It’s such a specific and technical issue, especially the legal causes, that I think they’re [UNHCR] the only ones really in a position to work on it.” “It seems that the coalition is a beautiful initiative at HQ, but it’s completely disconnected from the reality on the ground.” 132. UN system-wide cooperation – Collaboration with other UN agencies has been important for the Campaign. In November 2018, the UN Secretary General issued a Guidance Note on the “Statelessness is one issue among United Nations and Statelessness79 which highlights the many protection problems. If I don’t principles and approaches to ensure coordinated action to have an adrenaline boost from address statelessness. UNHCR and UNICEF collaborate on the UNHCR, it’s difficult for us to have that 80 Coalition on Every Child’s Right to a Nationality, and UNHCR boost.” and UN Women have worked together with NGO partners on – Key informant interviews the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights.81 UNDP and UNHCR have exchanged staff to build mutual understanding and support future joint programming. 133. Regional and country-level key informants noted that some of UNHCR’s key UN partnerships have not always resulted in willingness to invest time and resources in joint activities at the country level. Conversely, multiple key informants said that UNHCR protection officers in the field are unaware of various global partnerships with UN agencies, and that such partnerships lack funding while generating additional reporting requirements. Some cases demonstrated instances of some positive collaboration on birth registration with UNICEF and work on including statelessness in national censuses with UNFPA. 134. In January 2018, the Executive Committee adopted a decision82 calling on UNHCR and relevant organizations to develop a system-wide strategy for statelessness and to scale up UN efforts ahead of the 2019 HLS. This decision also called on the UN Deputy Secretary General to develop a common approach to issues of legal identity and registration, to prevent statelessness and support the SDGs’ aim of leaving no one behind. As a result, UNHCR established an Inter-Agency Working Group (IAWG). This IAWG met three times in 2019 and developed the UN System-Wide Strategy to Address Statelessness and a workplan, to support the GAP. UNHCR leads all key actions / workstreams in the workplan. 135. Following the workplan, the IAWG has developed common key messages on statelessness for the UN System and updated and reissued the 2011 Secretary General’s Guidance Note on Statelessness. The IAWG has also identified a set of priority countries for more focused attention by the UN System to address statelessness issues, pending confirmation from the Executive Office of the Secretary General. According to records, work on other actions in the plan is still underway, including efforts to develop common approaches on disaggregated data collection and analysis related to statelessness, enhancing interagency efforts to eliminate gender discrimination in nationality laws, examining the link between counter-terrorism and statelessness, and analyzing issues of statelessness related to nomadic peoples to formulate recommendations to address their situation. 136. The evaluation did not find any evidence of an active role played by any Resident Coordinators (RC) in advocating on statelessness issues, despite the UN Secretary General’s guidance note. Nor did any key informant provide examples of UNHCR approaching RCs to seek their help in coordinating among UN Country Team (UNCT) members or for advocacy with government officials. Considering the long-term nature of resolving the most difficult and sensitive situations of "I’m not sure Resident Coordinators have an understanding of statelessness and that it is part of their job. Refugees and statelessness, it is like a stone in their shoe. They define their success based on how close they are to governments. If it would compromise their standing, they would say deal with it bilaterally. I don’t think we have been successful in engaging RCs.” “Nothing could assist UNHCR in alleviating statelessness more than States changing citizenship laws to grant citizenship. I don’t think we see enough directly lobbying from senior figures in the UN system and direct criticism of some countries. Every country has a different law but maybe it’s time we started making stronger efforts to convince States that birth right citizenship is a human right.” – Key informant interviews 79 See https://www.refworld.org/docid/5c580e507.html See https://www.unhcr.org/ibelong/unicef-unhcr-coalition-child-rightnationality/#:~:text=The%20Coalition%20aims%20to%20develop,child%20to%20acquire%20a%20nationality.&text=Ensure%20that%20no%20child%20is %20born%20stateless 81 See https://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/press/2014/6/53a15cc56/ending-gender-discrimination-nationality-laws.html 82 UNHCR, Update on Implementation of EC Decision 2018/02 on Statelessness (17 January 2018). 80 40 UNHCR / May, 2021