UNHCR, APRIL 2023 REFUGEES FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION rights based on birth in Uganda for those who are not members of one of the indigenous communities listed in a schedule to the constitution, creating significant risks of statelessness. This even includes the children of parents who registered or naturalised as Ugandan citizens before their birth, who must apply for citizenship in their own right after accumulating the required pe riod of residence as an adult (residence as a minor is not counted for the purposes of registration or naturalisation; while minor children can also not be included within a parent’s application to naturalise ). Since the required period of residence for naturalisation is 20 years, even the stateless child of a former refugee born in Uganda could only acquire Ugandan citizenship at 38 years old at the earliest. Naturalisation based on long residence is generally very hard or impossible to access for refugees in all three countries (as it is throughout the African continent, except in the few cases where there have been special initiatives to facilitate acquisition). The key issues in preventing statelessness among refugees and their descendants therefore include assessing potential statelessness as part of refugee registration, and/or when applicable, individual refugee status determination procedures; the issuance and renewal of refugee identity documents; ensuring universal birth registration for all children of refugees born in country of asylum (with attention to the details that should be recorded in the birth register and especially the birth certificate); and the facilitation of access to substitute civil registration certificates for those whose births or marriages took place in another country. There is also the need to establish of minimum rights to nationality based on birth in the territory of the country of asylum, as well as the possibility of acquisition of nationality based on long-term residence, and the removal of procedural barriers to accessing these rights. The detailed content of such provisions can seem quite abstract, but they profoundly impact upon the search for durable solutions for these long-term refugees. The practical implications reported by the refugees themselves relate to livelihoods, including access to food, housing, healthcare and education, and freedom of movement. The idea that a legal change of nationality is even possible can be hard to grasp. However, a significant minority mentioned access to identity documents in the country of asylum (and their renewal) and civil registration among the main problems they faced. Expired or inaccessible identity documents also restrict freedom of movement and access to services – meaning that there is overlap among these responses. Many refugees are closely integrated into the societies where they now live, even as the older refugees in particular retain links to their countries of origin. There is a need to develop legal pathways that allow for this integration in their host country to be fully recognised: it is neither practical nor desirable for refugee status to be maintained over multiple generations, and risks of statelessness are compounded. There are often political challenges to the development of pathways towards acquisition of nationality, and the challenges over questions such as rights of access to land need to be resolved. There are also potential dangers if individuals feel pressurised into accepting a new status as an alternative to refugee status, especially if it may lead to the cessation of their refugee status, or does not provide a route to (re)acquisition of nationality. However, the indefinite status of refugee is also not sustainable, and creates its own political dangers, if a group that as a matter of fact is permanently resident is at the same time permanently excluded from full membership of society. It is also notable that in Uganda, where focus groups were also conducted with host communities, no objection was expressed to the concept that refugees might acquire Ugandan citizenship; a view confirmed by survey data from other sources. The 1951 UN Refugee Convention provides for the naturalisation of refugees to be facilitated. The 1969 African Refugee Convention calls for the “settlement” of refugees to be secured. In addition to these provisions relating to the status of adults, there are stronger rights to nationality in case of children born in the country of asylum. Article 6(3) of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child provides, in line with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, that every child has the right to acquire a nationality. Article 6(4) adopts a similar minimum protection to that provided in Article 1 of the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, requiring states to provide in law that “A child shall acquire the nationality of the State in the territory of which he [sic] has been born if, at the time of the child’s birth, he is not granted nationality by any other State in accordance with its laws." 3