EVALUATION OF UNHCR-LED INITIATIVES TO END STATELESSNESS – FINAL REPORT – VOLUME I 156. The preparations for the HLS, including the establishment of the temporary position of the Special Advisor on Statelessness, served to reinvigorate the campaign and increase internal attention, though the Special Advisor was not provided with a budget or support staff. The Special Advisor was engaged in vigorous diplomatic outreach leading up to the HLS to encourage State participation and pledges, while also helping to increase internal attention to statelessness. Preparatory meetings facilitated by UNHCR staff with governments and partners served to increase internal and external focus on statelessness in 2018 and 2019. Since the HLS the Statelessness Section, regional statelessness officers and some Regional Directors have emphasized the importance of country operations following up with States on the statelessness pledges they made at the HLS and GRF. The HLS was immediately followed by the GRF, and key informants and review of public communications suggest that high level attention, messaging and follow-up has focused much more on non-statelessness issues. The outbreak of COVID19 has also reportedly complicated UNHCR’s follow-up and delay of some government actions. Learning and training for statelessness work Finding 15: A lack of staff knowledge and skills hinder UNHCR’s ability to effectively prevent and end statelessness. Training resources are out of date and inadequately target staff in different functions and at different levels. 157. Overall, 53 percent of UNHCR staff that responded to the survey said they are familiar with the contents of the GAP and either sometimes or regularly use it to guide their work, while only 3 percent said they had never heard of the GAP. Familiarity and use of the GAP was particularly high in the Europe region, with 69 percent of staff claiming that they either sometimes or regularly used it to guide their work, compared with only 38 percent in the MENA region. Country Representatives were particularly likely to refer to the GAP (77 percent said they sometimes or regularly used it), while only 32 percent of External Relations Officers said they were familiar with and referred to the GAP within their work. 158. Despite reasonably high levels of familiarity with the GAP, staff knowledge and skills were consistently cited as a hindering factor for UNHCR’s work on statelessness. While a significant focus of UNHCR’s work on statelessness has been on capacity building of partners, national governments in particular, there has been less emphasis on learning and capacity building of its own workforce. A 2009 UNHCR Inspector General’s Report noted that, “While there is growing awareness of the emphasis being placed on the prevention and reduction of statelessness, staff both at Headquarters and in the Field, still have a limited knowledge of the Office’s mandate for stateless persons.” 88 In 2016 the lack of understanding of birth registration procedures and priorities and lack of dedicated staff time were cited as internal challenges in achieving results on birth registration (for both refugee and stateless populations).89 A number of key “We need training, virtual training is stakeholders also stated that lack of awareness, knowledge and not sufficient” specialist skills have persistently hindered UNHCR from "A one-day training is not sufficient expanding its work on statelessness and achieving its stated and needs to be followed up aims. 159. The only dedicated training on statelessness within UNHCR is an online self-study module that was developed in 2012. 90 While its content covers some important topics, it pre-dates the start of the #IBelong Campaign and is therefore de-linked from the GAP and other important global and regional processes and achievements of relevance to statelessness. According to data from UNHCR, a total of 1,277 individuals completed the online training between 2012 and 2020,91 with a particular peak in 2020 when the number of trainees was more than double that of previous years, primarily because of a jump in the number of consultants and contractors completing the training that year (see Figure 17). through more trainings and day-today coaching, which is challenging to ensure amidst non-stop refugee related emergencies." – Survey respondents “We do have an online training but not necessarily targeting leadership. That’s needed, they’re the ones making the decisions, particular with the regionalization process internally.” – Key informant interview 88 UNHCR, 2009 Global Report, Operational Management. UNHCR, Birth Registration: UNHCR Global Field Survey on Policies and Practices, 2016. UNHCR (2012) Self-study Module on Statelessness, UNHCR 2012. 91 Data on the number of individuals to complete the UNHCR self-study module on statelessness varies. The figure of 1,277 trainees is extracted from UNHCR Global Learning and Development Centre record, shared by the UNHCR Evaluation Service. 89 90 UNHCR / May, 2021 45