DESK REVIEW ON POPULATIONS AT RISK OF STATELESSNESS g. Scale-up birth and civil registration efforts as a nationwide effort. Birth and civil registration efforts should support access to isolated and disadvantaged areas and consider perceptions and practicalities that prevent registration. Rigorous information dissemination on the importance of birth registration should be a priority, and crossborder engagement may also be necessary. For example, Sama Bajau populations are found in the Philippines, Malaysia, and Indonesia, and culturally, they have lived a sea-faring and itinerant lifestyle for generations. They are often undocumented and without any form of birth or civil registration. Dialogue and common cooperative measures should be pursued among the three countries, with inclusion and the meaningful engagement of populations at risk of statelessness themselves in the decision-making processes. This may include, revisiting or updating border crossing agreements, such as the 1975 Revised Agreement between the Philippines and Indonesia. Birth and civil registration efforts should include, as a priority, the Sama Bajaus, expanding on the successful pilot delayed birth registration of Sama Bajaus in Zamboanga City in 2019 led by the Philippine Government through the DOJ, National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), and the City Civil Registry Office, with support from UNHCR and UNICEF, which issued around 600 birth certificates. The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and civil society partners have recommended that the whole of BARMM especially Basilan, Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi (BASULTA), and Palawan also be included as a priority, due to the large number of persons in these areas that have no birth registration; and also that returning Filipinos from Sabah be included as a priority. h. Support implementation of the tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on statelessness issues in Sabah,25 which was signed by the Commission on the Human Rights of the Philippines (CHRP), the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM), and the National Commission on Human Rights of Indonesia (Komnas HAM). This also involves committing to collaboration among government and civil society stakeholders “[i]n the spirit of encouraging multi-stakeholder engagement, … to ensure that the human rights of stateless persons are respected, including access to asylum and justice, freedom of movement and liberty, non-refoulement, work, education, and healthcare…,” and concretizing the development of joint work plans designed to have an impact on the greatest number of persons at risk of statelessness as possible. Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (SUHAKAM), the National Commission on Human Rights of Indonesia (Komnas HAM), and the Commission on the Human Rights of the Philippines (CHRP) on Statelessness Issues in Sabah. 25 12 UNHCR / April 2021