Leaving No One Behind: Statelessness and the Sustainable Development Goals Table of Contents Acknowledgments 7 Foreword 8 Executive Summary 9 1. Introduction 11 1.1 The Sustainable Development Goals' commitment to "leave no one behind" requires the eradication of statelessness 12 1.2 Outline of the report 13 2. What is statelessness? 14 2.1 The definition of a stateless person 15 2.2 How many people are stateless? 15 2.3 Causes of statelessness 16 2.4 Solutions to statelessness 16 3. Why is statelessness relevant to development? 19 3.1 Statelessness and the Sustainable Development Goals 20 3.2 Consequences of statelessness for individuals, communities and States 22 3.3 Poverty 23 Impoverished individuals 23 Impoverished communities 25 Individuals, communities and States: the economic and social benefits of granting citizenship 28 3.4 Health and education 30 The impact of statelessness on individual access to health care and education 31 The impact of lack of access to health care and education on stateless communities 34 The broader impact on society and State of excluding stateless persons 35 3.5 Peace and security 37 Individual security 37 Community security 39 State security 39 3.6 Cross-cutting themes: non-discrimination, the rule of law and legal identity 40 Non-discrimination & equality 40 The rule of law 41 Legal identity, statelessness and development 42 4