Leaving No One Behind: Statelessness and the Sustainable Development Goals Systems can be designed to enable the collection of administrative data on the reasons why people are facing difficulties in proving elements of their legal identity, including nationality, and to inform efforts to resolve these obstacles. For example, the options provided in computer software used by front-desk staff during adult registration or enrolment processes should require a staff person to record the reason why enrolment was not immediately possible, rather than simply rejecting an application. The system should prompt referral of an application from a person whose status is not clear to a more senior officer and (if it still cannot be resolved in favour of the applicant), then to a specialized status determination mechanism, with paralegal assistance to enable their status to be resolved. The model of biometric registration that simply provides every person resident in the country with a unique identity number, regardless of legal status, is a tempting model to simplify the process in contexts where many have previously not held identity documents. However, stateless persons and those whose nationality has not yet been determined will remain excluded from many services or opportunities for which proof of nationality and legal status is a requirement. The need to resolve their status will remain and they may even be further disadvantaged while this is pending. Reduction of statelessness: outreach to stateless populations Development initiatives should always promote universal access to social protection and basic public services, including for stateless persons. However, the underlying causes of their exclusion must also be resolved if disproportionate levels of poverty among stateless people are to be addressed on a long-term basis. This may sometimes necessarily involve special outreach programmes to ensure that those prevented by administrative obstacles from gaining recognition of nationality to which they have a legal entitlement are enabled to do so; or to provide for facilitated naturalization by easing the normal procedures, documentary requirements and reducing fees for acquisition of nationality.250 Where there are large populations of stateless people who have lost all connection to an alleged country “of origin”, special measures to resolve the legal status of these groups will be required, in line with Action 1, on resolving existing major situations of statelessness.251 Development programming for the integration of stateless populations should include support for initiatives to reduce statelessness through the grant of nationality, where these are available. An entry point may be provided to advocate for such initiatives where the government has adopted a national action plan on statelessness or agreed a focus on stateless persons within the Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework agreed with the United Nations. These outreach programmes may be outside the normal budget allocations of the responsible departments and require financial support to be effective, while also providing an opportunity for development actors to address the underlying cause of poverty among populations of concern to UNHCR at relatively low cost. Development partners could provide support for applications within such initiatives to be made at locations closer to the affected communities, or for paralegal assistance to be provided to those preparing an application, or the payment of costs where those eligible to acquire nationality are otherwise unable to access the procedures. 250. UNHCR, “Handbook on protection of stateless persons”; Tamás Molnár, “A fresh examination of facilitated naturalisation as a solution for stateless persons”, in Solving Statelessness, ed. Laura van Waas and Melanie Khanna (Oisterwijk, The Netherlands: Wolf Legal Publishers, 2017), 225–58. 251. UNHCR, “Good practices paper – Action 1: Resolving existing major situations of statelessness” (Geneva: United Nations, August 2022), www. refworld.org/policy/opguidance/unhcr/2022/en/124144. 62