EVALUATION OF UNHCR-LED INITIATIVES TO END STATELESSNESS – FINAL REPORT – VOLUME I 146. Two particular external factors dominated discussions on what shapes UNHCR’s potential to influence positive change: the political and legal environment, and the socio-cultural norms and environment in a country. Each of these external context factors influences the other. With strong political and legal enabling environments, it is often easier to shift socio-cultural norms and vice versa. 147. Building on the lessons collected from case studies and other data sources the evaluation team developed a matrix illustrating the types of contextual scenarios that characterize the operational environments where UNHCR works. The country typologies matrix, including suggested combinations of UNHCR activities for each context type, is shown in Annex 12. 5.3 Institutional effectiveness UNHCR organizational culture and statelessness work Finding 13: Aspects of UNHCR’s institutional culture including the perceived primacy of the refugee mandate, concerns about jeopardizing access and relationships in politically sensitive situations, and a short-term emergency mindset have negatively affected UNHCR’s ability to meet the campaign’s objectives for ending statelessness in some contexts where statelessness is a severe problem. 148. The institutional culture of UNHCR was often cited by internal key informants and some knowledgeable global external experts as somewhat hindering prioritization of statelessness in UNHCR programming and effectively working towards the goal of ending statelessness. The historical and persistently strong emphasis on UNHCR’s “primary mandate” for refugees was seen by some as making it difficult to create space, widespread understanding and resources for statelessness work. This emphasis also creates informal incentives for Country Representatives and staff to focus on Pillar 1. Some internal and external key informants noted that UNHCR’s focus on statelessness has diminished as attention has shifted to refugee crises, the GRF, and partnership with the World Bank. Overall branding as the “UN Refugee Agency” and even the title of the High Commissioner for Refugees were also cited by some stakeholders as conveying a message to UNHCR’s workforce and external partners and represent legacies of a time when the organization’s mandate for IDPs and stateless persons were less established. 149. Key informants described a strongly siloed culture where protection and operations staff do not always interact and coordinate on a regular basis, with statelessness often seen as a technical and legal issue to be handled solely by protection staff. Staff perceive the technical and legal focus of much of UNHCR’s statelessness work as somewhat disconnected from stateless persons and how statelessness affects their lives. Staff working on statelessness also reported often "We must find a way to map countries being uninformed and not consulted in advance about key with a highly sensitive approach in opportunities such as field and diplomatic missions of the High statelessness and harmonize efforts in Commissioner and interactions between Country how we maintain this agenda and Representatives and Resident Coordinators and UN Country achieve progress! So far, once we Teams, limiting their ability to leverage such leadership mention political sensitivity, we stop engagements to raise important statelessness issues with key without any action" external parties. "Our choice of engagement is 150. In contexts where statelessness is politically sensitive the controlled by government opposition to primacy of the refugee mandate can lead to a low risk tolerance ANY involvement by UNHCR on for raising issues regarding statelessness for fear of jeopardizing statelessness issues, due to their government relationships, access and presence. Key informants extreme sensitivity in relation to cited instances where political sensitivities led UNHCR to place questions of national identity." severe limitations on statelessness work, up to and including not "Advocacy is carried out by local civil engaging on statelessness at all. Many UNHCR staff and society groups and not UNHCR due to partners believe that risk aversion is a big obstacle that must be political sensitivities." overcome to achieve progress on ending statelessness. That "We have concluded that any UNHCR said, multiple interviews suggested that UNHCR’s organizational engagement with this population could culture is generally risk averse across all of its mandates based trigger a political backlash with grave on a general fear to raise sensitive issues with governments. consequences for our refugee UNHCR key informants also stressed that a Representative’s protection work." comfort with engaging main government decision-makers on – Survey respondents statelessness issues is a key factor in the assessment of risks and trade-offs. According to the same key informants, weighing the risks and trade-offs of engaging governments where statelessness is highly sensitive is not systematic or standardized in UNHCR’s UNHCR / May, 2021 43