ANNUAL REPORT 2014-15 1 3 MESSAGE FROM OUR DIRECTOR The period covered by this annual report has proved pivotal both for the development of ENS and the external environment in which we work. We have completed our transition from being a project of our founding members to become an independent charity with a growing membership now covering 39 countries. The activities described in this report demonstrate our success in managing this internal change whilst maintaining an outward-looking focus centred on achieving real impact through maximising our resources. In just over a year we have published three comparative research reports, conducted eleven country studies, organised a major conference as well as two regional roundtables in Brussels and Strasbourg, facilitated two regional training workshops, supported over ten national training events, coordinated two online campaigns, engaged UN human rights mechanisms and started to implement a three-year litigation strategy. This has only been possible due to committed engagement of our members across Europe, as well as support from donors and other partners willing to back what was initially a fledgling initiative. During ENS’s 2012 inaugural meeting we did not anticipate the scale and speed with which the issue of statelessness would emerge. Nor that the UN Refugee Agency would boldly launch a campaign to eradicate statelessness within a decade. ENS can justifiably take some credit for these developments and we will continue our awareness-raising efforts; a central plank of our work to date. Inspired by our 2014 campaign to protect stateless persons in Europe, we have initiated a new #StatelessKids campaign, promoting the right of every child to acquire a nationality. This aligns with our strategy of seeking new ‘entry points’ to tackle statelessness, and has enabled us to engage a wider constituency of child rights actors and supporters. We have also shared our learning with other nascent regional statelessness networks to help foster a growing global civil society coalition. Nowhere is the ambition of eradicating statelessness more achievable than in Europe. The debate now is on ‘how’, rather than ‘what is’ or ‘why’ should we address the problem. Another marker of progress was the first ever Conclusions on statelessness adopted by the European Council in December 2015. This is just one of several platforms that we have helped bring about, and which we will use to redouble our efforts in 2016 and beyond. Thank you for your ongoing support, CHRIS NASH, DIRECTOR