AHMR African Human Mobility Review - Volume 11 No 2, MAY-AUGUST 2025 and the risks of statelessness, which it pledged to do in 2019. Although Angola made no explicit pledge to do so, released its study on statelessness and risks of statelessness in 2022 (Lungu, 2022). National surveys of this sort are crucial to a state’s response and action plan toward statelessness to first establish the scope of the problem. Several countries in the SADC region still require complete and comprehensive national surveys of this sort; South Africa’s survey is set to be completed in 2027, while Zimbabwe’s survey still requires field research. Eswatini’s national study, which had been earmarked for completion in 2021, required interviews with focus groups, which were hampered by COVID-19 restrictions and internal unrest. While the preliminary report was discussed at a validation workshop, it was decided that more interviews were to be conducted. These national studies are often reliant on UNHCR funding for completion. Where national surveys have not yet been completed, any potential plans to address statelessness are thwarted, as states do not have accurate data upon which to build their policies. Strengthen institutional coordination on statelessness States are encouraged to develop a national action plan to end statelessness, which includes the identification and protection of stateless persons, as well as the prevention and reduction of statelessness. A national action plan would highlight the key objectives, activities, and actors responsible for implementation. To this end, national inter-ministerial taskforces or working groups on statelessness are established to facilitate coordination across ministries and levels of government. Namibia pledged to adopt a National Action Plan to End Statelessness by June 2020. A National Committee on Statelessness (NCS) comprising stakeholders; Offices, Ministries and Agencies (OMAs); UN agencies; and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) was established to spearhead the implementation of the proposed plan. Malawi adopted a National Action Plan on the Eradication of Statelessness in 2023, supported by the UNHCR, to implement various actions of the Global Action Plan to End Statelessness. In the same year, Zambia updated and adopted its National Action Plan to End Statelessness, which, among other things, recommends amendments to the Citizenship Act No. 33 of 2016 and the National Registration Act Chapter 126, to establish a statelessness determination procedure and raise the maximum age by which foundlings would be presumed to have Zambian nationality. PROGRESS BEYOND PLEDGING While one of the GCR’s main forms of operationalization is the pledging system, it exists within a larger framework of events, campaigns, multi-stakeholder participation, and funding mobilization. Global and sustained campaigns to eradicate statelessness, such as the Global Alliance, function with their own mandate and institutional structure that have significant overlaps with other initiatives like the 124