that was mentioned as being underway in the previous Global Trends report. It would seem appropriate to explore whether the use of Column E could be extended so as to provide data on all stateless people who also have “another reportable status” in order to resolve the challenge of avoiding double counting while painting a clearer picture of the overall situation of statelessness globally. It would then also be easier to understand what proportion of the global stateless population has been displaced, helping to inform efforts to address statelessness as a root cause and consequence of forced migration and thereby contribute to strengthening the implementation of the Global Compact on Refugees and finding durable solutions for stateless refugees and IDPs.6 Stateless Palestinian refugees who receive assistance from UNRWA are also not included in the global data on statelessness which has been limited to persons under UNHCR’s 1954 Convention statelessness protection mandate. Taking this into account, in an extensive review of publicly available data relating to statelessness globally in 2014, ISI estimated the total figure for the number of people living without a nationality in the world to be at least 15 million.7 There have to date been no developments on such a scale to suggest that there has since been any major global shift in these aggregate numbers and ISI continues to use the estimate of at least 15 million to indicate how many people it understands to be stateless globally, drawing on existing statistical information. Where are the largest reported stateless populations? Data reported by UNHCR for the end of 2018 captures 3.852 million stateless people globally, showing no marked change as compared to the end of 2017, when a total of 3.854 million stateless people were recorded in the statistics. The ten countries that report the largest stateless populations accounted for 88.5% of the overall number of stateless people who were counted in 2018. As the table below shows, there have been only relatively minor changes in the data for these ten countries over the past year. Table 1: Ten countries with highest reported stateless populations according to UNHCR Global Trends data) End of 2018 Bangladesh* (906,635) Côte d’Ivoire (692,000) Myanmar* (620,939) Thailand (478,843) Latvia (224,844) Syria (160,000) Kuwait (92,000) Uzbekistan (79,942) Estonia (77,877) Russia (75,679) End of 2017 Bangladesh* (932,204) Côte d’Ivoire (692,000) Myanmar* (621,763) Thailand (486,440) Latvia (233,571) Syria (160,000) Kuwait (92,000) Uzbekistan (85,555) Russia (82,148) Estonia (80,314) End of 2016 Myanmar (925,939) Côte d’Ivoire (694,000) Thailand (487,741) Latvia (242,736) Syria (160,000) Kuwait (93,000) Russia (90,771) Uzbekistan (86,524) Estonia (82,585) Saudi Arabia (70,000) * In Bangladesh, the figure includes stateless Rohingya refugees; in Myanmar the figure includes stateless Rohingya IDPs. At the top of the table, there is no notable change. The Rohingya are still the largest stateless population reported in UNHCR’s global statelessness statistics. As was the case last year and discussed at length in ISI’s Statelessness in numbers: 2018, due to crimes against humanity being inflicted on the Rohingya in Rakhine State, hundreds of thousands were forced to flee their homes from August 2017, increasing the number of IDPs inside Myanmar and refugees in Bangladesh. UNHCR’s decision to “exceptionally” report displaced Rohingya populations in both its IDP/refugee and statelessness statistics has been maintained in this year’s statistical reporting. These numbers include the long-term displaced Rohingya within Bangladesh and 6 Section D of the introduction to the Global Compact on Refugee focuses on “Preventing and addressing root causes”, which affirms that “All States and relevant stakeholders are called on to tackle the root causes of large refugee situations”. The GCR is available at: https://www.unhcr.org/gcr/GCR_English.pdf. 7 Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, The World’s Stateless, 2014, available at http://www.institutesi.org/worldsstateless.pdf. 3