Manila, Philippines | 18-19 November 2011 UNHCR Co-Chair Thomas Vargas Senior Regional Protection Adviser for the Asia-Pacific United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) The Member States of ASEAN continue to pave the way towards addressing statelessness in the region through an array of concrete legislative and practical measures. They range from strides to ensure that children have their birth registered to measures to allow those inadvertently rendered stateless through conflicts of nationality laws to recover the nationality that they had lost. I and other UNHCR colleagues had the pleasure to join AICHR at a joint Regional Workshop on Statelessness to review these rich initiatives and to agree on a solid set of recommendations to be considered in moving forward. This report highlights some of the areas in which progress has been made in the region in recent years and upon which Governments can continue to build. There was a collective recognition among participants that continuing to resolve statelessness is important as it promotes economic growth, social progress, stability and the rule of law in the region. The issue is a priority for UNHCR as its Mandate includes not only protecting refugees but also addressing statelessness. This requires both the individual and collective engagement of States. This is why UNHCR is very pleased that AICHR has taken a lead on addressing statelessness in South East Asia. It was particularly appropriate that this Workshop was held in the Philippines not only because of its ratification of the 1954 Convention on the Status of Stateless Persons in 2011, but also because of the pledges that it made to address statelessness at the Ministerial Meeting that UNHCR hosted in Geneva just a number of weeks after the Workshop. Other ASEAN countries also made pledges at this Ministerial Meeting, including Indonesia and Thailand. UNHCR looks forward to support ASEAN Member States in their continuing work to address statelessness, and particularly to AICHR as it moves ahead in implementing the recommendations made at the Manila Regional Workshop. AICHR's work in this regard will in turn contribute to the realization of the right to a nationality and other key human rights for all peoples of ASEAN.