Leaving No One Behind: Statelessness and the Sustainable Development Goals Civil registration Development programming that supports strengthened civil registration is increasingly likely to integrate concerns regarding the prevention of statelessness. This is true within the programming of UNHCR and UNICEF, as well as the International Organization for Migration (IOM), under its mandate to provide assistance to migrants, and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), especially through its support for civil registration and the Centre of Excellence for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Systems.237 The agencies cooperating under the UN Legal Identity Agenda also adopted UN Country Team Operational Guidelines, which were first implemented in ten pilot countries in Africa.238 Statelessness has also been acknowledged within regional initiatives to strengthen birth registration, and in civil registration systems more generally, in Africa239 and in Asia.240 Among bilateral development agencies, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has adopted a “road map” on support for civil registration, in which it recognizes the importance of legal identity for development and for human rights and notes that lack of civil registration creates risks of statelessness.241 Within these efforts, development programming should pay particular attention to supporting birth registration in challenging contexts, including for the children of stateless parents and irregular migrants and for refugees and other forcibly displaced persons. Research and guidance on best practices in relation to birth registration and the issuance of identity documents in contexts of conflict and post-conflict, or natural disaster, is provided by UNICEF and UNHCR,242 the Centre for Excellence for CRVS243 and the Red Cross.244 The IOM institutional strategy on legal identity also provides guidance not available elsewhere on assisting migrants to obtain identity documents from consular authorities.245 There is often a need to develop additional policy guidance within each national context and legal framework for the prevention of statelessness, considering the requirements for proof or acquisition of nationality in both countries of origin and of current residence. For example: on the information that should be recorded on the birth register and certificate to protect the child’s right to a nationality if the parents’ nationality is unknown or undocumented; on the possibility of accessing consular assistance or providing substitute documents if consular assistance is not available; and on the referral mechanisms to put in place so that the nationality of child and parents can be determined and statelessness of the child prevented. These issues may require specialized technical inputs. A focus on birth registration should be extended to support for the registration of other civil status events, also often required for nationality, to be recognized or granted, including adoptions, marriages, divorces and deaths. 237. Centre of Excellence for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems, based in Canada https://crvssystems.ca/. 238. UNDP, UNDESA, and UNICEF, “Implementation of the United Nations legal identity agenda: United Nations country team operational guidelines” (United Nations, May 2020), https://unstats.un.org/legal-identity-agenda/documents/UNCT-Guidelines.pdf. See also “Implementation of the UN legal identity agenda in selected African countries: synthesis report: review of the 10 country assessment reports”, March 2022, https://unstats.un.org/ unsd/statcom/53rd-session/documents/BG-3f-UN-Legal-Identity-Agenda-in-selected-African-Countries-E.pdf. 239. “Yamoussoukro Declaration: Third Conference of African Ministers Responsible for Civil Registration”, 13 February 2015, https://unstats.un.org/unsd/ demographic/CRVS/Global_CRVS_Docs/news/ThirdConf_resolutions.pdf; “Migrants, refugees, internally displaced persons and stateless persons in civil registration and vital statistic systems in Africa” (Fourth Conference of African Ministers Responsible for Civil Registration – Experts meeting, Nouakchott: African Union, UNECA and others, 2017), https://repository.uneca.org/handle/10855/24052. 240. “Ministerial declaration to ‘Get every one in the picture’ in Asia and the Pacific” (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), November 2014), https://getinthepicture.org/resource/ministerial-declaration-get-every-one-picture-asia-and-pacific. 241. Ministère de l’Europe et des affaires étrangères, “Améliorer l’universalité et la fiabilité de l’enregistrement des faits d’état civil: Feuille de route pour l’action de la France à l’international 2021–2027” (Paris: République française, September 2021), https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/feuille-deroute_etat-civil_2021_cle0b1cb5.pdf. 242. UNICEF, “Birth registration and armed conflict” (Florence: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, 2007), https://digitallibrary.un.org/ record/608458?v=pdf; UNHCR, “Child protection issue brief: birth registration” (Geneva: United Nations, 2013), www.refworld.org/docid/523fe9214. html; UNICEF, “Uprooted: the growing crisis for refugee and migrant children” (New York: United Nations, 2016), www.unicef.org/reports/uprootedgrowing-crisis-refugee-and-migrant-children. 243. Centre of Excellence for CRVS Systems, “Compendium of good practices: harnessing civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) in conflict, emergencies and fragile settings” (Ottawa: International Development Research Centre, 2021), https://crvssystems.ca/fragility. 244. IFRC, “World disasters report 2018: leaving no one behind” (International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, 2018), Chap. 2.2. Hidden people: the documentation problem, www.ifrc.org/document/world-disasters-report-2018. 245. IOM, “Institutional strategy on legal identity” (Geneva: International Organization for Migration, 2021), https://publications.iom.int/books/iominstitutional-strategy-legal-identity. 60