BACKGROUND NOTE ON GENDER EQUALITY, NATIONALITY LAWS AND STATELESSNESS 2018 More recently, commitments made at the regional level have been instrumental in promoting change. In February 2015, under the Abidjan Declaration of Economic Community of West African States on Eradication of Statelessness4, and subsequently pursuant to the legally binding Banjul Plan of Action5 adopted in May 2017, ECOWAS Member States committed to ensuring that women and men have equal rights to confer nationality on their children. In October 2017, Member States of the International Conference of the Great Lakes Region Member States signed a Declaration on the Eradication of Statelessness6 and an accompanying Plan of Action which commits those States to ensuring that women and men have equal rights to acquire, change and retain their nationality and to confer their nationality on their children and spouses. In October 2016, a Regional Expert Meeting entitled “Our Children, Our Future: Belonging and Identity”, was convened in partnership with the League of Arab States (LAS), which resulted in the development of a LAS Declaration to strengthen rights to legal identity, including rights to birth registration, nationality and family unity. In October 2017, a Conference for Arab States on Good Practices and Regional Opportunities to Strengthen Women’s Nationality Rights was organized by the LAS and resulted in the adoption of an Outcome Statement7 that promotes gender equality in the acquisition, change, retention or conferral of nationality. These events paved the way for the LAS to adopt a Ministerial Declaration on Belonging and Legal Identity in February 2018, which combines the main provisions of the 2016 Arab Declaration and 2017 Outcome Statement. The Ministerial Declaration calls for gender equal nationality rights in all countries in the region, as well as for all children to enjoy their right to a legal identity. In 2017, Madagascar and Sierra Leone became the first countries since the launch of UNHCR’s #IBelong Campaign to End Statelessness to reform their nationality laws to allow mothers to confer their nationality to their children on an equal basis as men. In Madagascar, although the reform does not permit Malagasy women to confer their nationality on their non-national spouses (as Malagasy men can), it does allow both spouses and children to retain their nationality if a partner or a parent loses theirs. In 4 Abidjan Declaration of Ministers of ECOWAS Member States on Eradication of Statelessness, 25 February 2015, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/54f588df4.html 5 Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Plan of Action on Eradication of Statelessness, 2017 – 2024, 2017, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/5915c88a4.html 6 Declaration of International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) Member States on the Eradication of Statelessness, 16 October 2017, CIRGL/CIMR/DEC/15/10/2017, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/59e9cb8c4.html 7 The First Arab Conference on Good Practices & Regional Opportunities to Strengthen Women's Nationality Rights League of Arab States Secretariat General, 1-2 October 2017 – Outcome Statement, available at: http://www.refworld.org/docid/5a256c4a4.html 4 UNHCR | 8 March 2018