Stateless Persons Plan also aims to strengthen civil registration and vital statistics systems, which would likewise contribute to the availability of quantitative and qualitative data. Recent years have seen a significant increase in awareness of statelessness among governments and NGOs, and within the United Nations. Strong evidence of the greater commitments made by States to address statelessness is provided by the steady increase in the number of States that are party to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Since 2011, 27 States have acceded to one or both of these conventions – in fact, more States have acceded to the 1961 Convention over the last four years than during the four decades following its adoption. Currently, there are 83 States Parties to the 1954 Convention and 61 to the 1961 Convention. This growing commitment also lays the ground for improved identification and gathering of data on statelessness. Statistics on stateless persons can be gathered using several methods, including analysis of civil registration data, a population census, or a targeted survey.38 The United Nations recommendations on population censuses underscore the importance of including questions related to citizenship, including statelessness.39 Based on census data obtained through the 2010 World Population and Housing Census Programme, data for 10 countries are included in the 2013 statistics. This is a significant increase, given that census data for just two countries were included only three years ago. UNHCR will continue to work with other UN agencies and with civil society partners to achieve further improvements in census data quality and coverage in the coming years, including through the 2020 World Population and Housing Census Programme, for which preparations are now underway. 38 Fig. 3.1 Number of countries for which statistics on stateless persons were reported | 2004 - 2013 2004 30 11 2005 48 2006 49 2007 54 2008 58 22 2009 60 21 2010 65 20 2011 64 21 2012 72 2013 75 40 In the migratory context, statelessness determination procedures are essential for the effective identification of stateless persons. The 1954 Convention neither implicitly requires that a procedure be established nor prescribes a particular means for determining statelessness. It does establish standards of treatment of stateless persons, however, and these can be applied by a State Party only if it knows who should receive this treatment. The creation of statelessness determination procedures therefore fulfills the objective and purpose of the 1954 Convention. Evidence shows that establishing statelessness determination procedures does not increase migration by stateless persons to States with such procedures. To provide guidance to relevant actors, including government authorities, UNHCR published a Handbook on Protection of Stateless Persons40 in 2014. Currently, 10 States have statelessness determination mechanisms that lead to a legal status permitting UNHCR (2012), The State of the World’s Refugees: In Search of Solidarity, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 108–109. UNHCR Statistical Yearbook 2013 19 17 17 19 Countries with reliable data Countries with known populations without reliable data 39 United Nations (2008), Principles and Recommendations for Population and Housing Censuses, Revision 2, New York, accessible at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/publication/seriesM/seriesm_67Rev2e.pdf. 40 http://www.unhcr.org/53b698ab9.html . 14 residence and guaranteeing the enjoyment of basic human rights and facilitated naturalization. Other countries are currently studying the possibility of establishing similar determination procedures. Further, a number of countries already have mechanisms in place to determine statelessness but would need to bring these in line with international standards on the protection of stateless persons. In particular, these mechanisms would need to be linked to the granting of legal status permitting residence, the enjoyment of basic human rights, and facilitated naturalization. UNHCR’s statistics on those under its statelessness mandate mainly comprise stateless persons – that is, persons not considered as nationals by any State under the operation of its law. However, data from some countries also include persons of undetermined nationality. UNHCR’s statistics include data only on countries for which reliable official statistics or estimates of stateless populations are available. Despite the increased number of countries engaged in reporting and the enhanced reliability of their figures, UNHCR is unable to provide comprehensive statistics on stateless persons in all countries. A considerable gap remains between the data provided