SOLVING STATELESSNESS 2. The Sustainable Development Goals and solutions to statelessness Radha Govil1 1. Introduction In his opening address to the First Global Forum on Statelessness on 15 September 2014, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Assistant High Commissioner for Protection, Volker Türk, noted that “[p]romoting […] the right to a legal identity through the post2015 sustainable development goals will be important to ending statelessness and crucial to dismantling some of the major barriers to sustainable and peaceful development”.2 He cited examples from Bangladesh and Myanmar, Côte d’Ivoire and the Gulf to illustrate at the national and regional levels the considerable costs to security, development and human rights of a failure to resolve statelessness. His remarks not only echoed, but expanded upon, the earlier finding of the High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, that the securing of an individual’s legal identity is an imperative for development and its recommendation that States adopt a goal relating to free and universal legal identity as part of the goal of ensuring good governance and effective institutions.3 At a United Nations Summit held on 25-27 September 2015 in New York, the Member States of the United Nations (UN) adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (2030 Agenda) which has a Declaration, a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and 169 associated Targets at its core, including a Target for the provision 1 2 3 Legal Officer (Statelessness), Division of International Protection, in United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This chapter reflects the views of the author and not necessarily those of UNHCR or of the United Nations. V. Türk, Keynote Address: Ending Statelessness: An Imperative for the 21st Century, Global Forum on Statelessness, 15 September 2014. The High-level Panel of Eminent Persons on the Post-2015 Development Agenda, A New Global Partnership: Eradicate Poverty and Transform Economies through Sustainable Development, 2013. 47