Leaving No One Behind: Statelessness and the Sustainable Development Goals Rohingya, who were prevented from self-identifying, and many households were left out of the census altogether. Donors were criticized for having been “largely blind to the political and conflict risks”.201 Perhaps the most comprehensive efforts to collect better data on the numbers of people affected by lack of documentation or recognition of nationality have been carried out in Nepal and Côte d’Ivoire (see box (J) below). Important examples of detailed quantitative surveys revealing the impacts of statelessness include studies conducted in Kenya (see box (E) on page 27), in Thailand (see box (G) on page 36) and as in Lebanon (see page 34).202 The UNHCR-World Bank Joint Data Center has supported national statistical offices in four Central Asian countries in integrating data on stateless persons into national censuses, including by training census enumerators in citizenship status and statelessness and running public awareness campaigns to encourage the participation of stateless people in censuses.203 ! J) Counting stateless persons: Nepal and Côte d’Ivoire Nepal: Estimating the percentage of the population lacking citizenship documentation204 The Forum for Women Law and Development (FWLD) in Nepal carried out studies in 2013 and 2015 to map the size and presence of the population lacking citizenship certificates – the essential document recognizing Nepalese citizenship and enabling access to citizens’ rights. The study is perhaps the most comprehensive in any country with a substantial undocumented population, many whom are at risk of statelessness. It combined administrative and survey data to produce estimates of the numbers of people without documents recognizing citizenship. It was based on information from various agencies of the government of Nepal, including: citizenship certificate distribution records from 1952 to 2011 from the Ministry of Home Affairs; the National Population and Housing Census (NPHC) carried out in 2011 by the Central Bureau of Statistics, which provides data on the population over 16 years of age living in each district of Nepal; and the Population Perspective Plan (PPP) 2010–2031 of the Ministry of Health and Population. The study found that, as at July 2011, 23.65 per cent of the population aged 16 and above, or 4,346,046 individuals, did not have citizenship certificates. In 2013, the government of Nepal instituted a programme of mobile camps for the distribution of citizenship certificates, to increase the coverage of the certificates. The FWLD carried out a new study, which estimated that the percentage of the population without certificates had decreased to 22.35 per cent as a result. Although the percentage drop was statistically significant, it was small. Moreover, using data from the previous four years to calculate future trends, the FWLD estimated that the percentage of the population without citizenship certificates would reach 26.14 per cent by 2021, leading to the conclusion that the number of citizenship certificates distributed through normal procedures does not keep up with the number of people becoming eligible to obtain citizenship certificates annually. 201. International Crisis Group, “Counting the costs: Myanmar’s problematic census” (Brussels, May 2014), www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-east-asia/ myanmar/counting-costs-myanmar-s-problematic-census. See also Philip Heijmans, “Myanmar’s controversial census: rights groups are outraged that the census has failed to recognize an oppressed minority”, The Diplomat, 2 September 2014 https://thediplomat.com/2014/09/myanmarscontroversial-census/. 202. UNHCR and World Bank, “Understanding the socioeconomic conditions of the stateless Shona Community”; Flaim, “No land’s man” (including detailed discussion of survey methodology); Flaim et al., “The UNESCO highland peoples surveys”; UNHCR and Siren Associates, “Mapping and understanding statelessness in Akkar”; see also, EGRISS, “Country examples of data collection on statelessness statistics” (UN Statistical Commission, January 2022), https://egrisstats.org/resource/country-examples-of-data-collection-on-statelessness-statistics/. 203. UNHCR-World Bank Joint Data Center, Statelessness and national censuses in Central Asia, www.jointdatacenter.org/activites/statelessness-andnational-censuses-in-central-asia/. 204. Sabin Shrestha and Bishnu Das Singh Dangol, “Acquisition of citizenship certificate in Nepal: estimating prevalence” (Kathmandu: Forum for Women, Law and Development (FWLD), 2013), https://fwld.org/publications/acquisition-citizenship-certificate-nepal-estimating-prevalence/; Sabin Shrestha, Sabin Mulmi and Bishnu Das Singh Dangol, “Acquisition of citizenship certificate in Nepal: estimation and projection” (Kathmandu: Forum for Women, Law and Development (FWLD), 2015), https://fwld.org/publications/acquisition-citizenship-certificate-nepal-estimation-projection/. 52