sharing. Some Embassy staff in Thailand were well informed on non-refugee statelessness, but it was not clear whether the Embassy is using this knowledge for diplomacy or to inform activities. In Nepal, the Embassy staff expressed great respect for the work of UNHCR who they worked closely with on refugee issues. With regard to statelessness, the Human Rights Officer in Nepal was well informed about the legal framework and gender discrimination in the law and well versed on the FWLD population estimates of people without citizenship, since he is in charge of writing the DOS annual Country Report on Human Rights Practices. This information was included in the Statelessness Section of the report. In 2020, the Embassy in Nepal sent two cables, coordinated with PRM—one about a recent legal change in the law and the other on the Supreme Court’s decision that ensured COVID-19 relief should be accessible to all. In the Dominican Republic, the Political Officer at the Embassy had input on key diplomatic engagements and served as the key contact in the Embassy to engage on statelessness issues, as is highlighted in Box 39, on the next page. In the Dominican Republic there were significant efforts to share information on statelessness work between USAID and the Political Officer. Box 39: Inter-Embassy Coordination “The number of memos that come to USAID for clearance or review from Eco-Pol when they meet with Dominican officials to touch on the issue of Dominicans of Haitian descent is a lot…. Eco-Pol has the advantage of being politically strategic while from USAID’s point of view, we can provide input from a long-term presence in the country and knowledge of operations.” USAID foreign assistance funding also includes Dominicans of Haitian descent (for example, in its at-risk youth livelihoods programming). However, the Evaluation Team was unable to determine if this has been coordinated with PRM or with UNHCR to result in joint programming or linking youth reached with USAID funds to UNHCR services, which seems like a missed opportunity. In the FGDs, RefCoords agreed that it made sense to engage USAID and support efforts to include reaching the population of concern in broader development assistance. One RefCoord highlighted having engaged USAID more broadly on refugee programming but had not yet had a real opportunity to discuss statelessness issues and coordinate on them. At the same time, the RefCoord survey revealed that, out of 14 respondents, eight have never engaged with the Political-Economic Section to raise the issue. As some RefCoords expressed “Statelessness is a technical issue that U.S. diplomats don’t understand,” and “their role is not clear…I am not sure that our political officer colleagues see themselves as points of contact on this issue.” As a result, this evaluation identified a lack of coordination between PRM and other Embassy staff to be a gap impeding PRM’s effectiveness on statelessness, especially because of the cross-cutting nature of statelessness as discussed earlier. Within DOS. Just as the evaluation has shown that UNHCR cannot do it alone, neither can PRM. There has not been as much cross-bureau work on statelessness within DOS to date, despite its relationship to other bureau mandates. As one DOS staff member remarked, “the State Department itself is not set up to work well on these cross-cutting issues.” Given the limited political will in the Dominican Republic, U.S. diplomacy is one of the few ways to effectively make progress on addressing statelessness there, which could be similarly effective in other situations. However, in order for U.S. Embassies to engage governments bilaterally on statelessness stronger “demand signals” are needed from Washington. To add to the weight of demand signals from Washington, it would be beneficial if additional DOS bureaus also supported statelessness advocacy and diplomacy. At the same time, programmatically, there are opportunities to complement PRM and UNHCR’s mandate and strengthen programming overall. For example, media and public awareness-raising has been cited as a key intervention to combat root causes of statelessness. Complementary programming with DRL, for example, which provides funds to CSOs to engage media and work to change public perception, could complement UNHCR’s work. It would also support advocacy work on an area that may be difficult for UNHCR in sensitive political contexts. In Thailand, for example, the Evaluation Team found that the “boys in the cave” media attention led to increased knowledge of how individuals are affected by statelessness. 28