Leaving No One Behind: Statelessness and the Sustainable Development Goals Development is a comprehensive economic, social, cultural and political process, that aims at the constant improvement of the well-being of the entire population and of all individuals on the basis of their active, free and meaningful participation in development and in the fair distribution of the benefits resulting therefrom.15 Statelessness is typically presented and analysed as a human rights or purely legal issue rather than a question of development policy. And yet the fulfilment of the right to a nationality for all is key to the fulfilment of development goals – including the eradication of poverty. At the same time, development initiatives can directly contribute to efforts to identify, prevent and resolve statelessness, and for the protection of stateless persons. 3.1 Statelessness and the Sustainable Development Goals An extensive literature has examined the relationship between development and human rights,16 exploring both the differences of approach between the two analytical frameworks, and the common vision and purpose of human development and human rights “to secure the freedom, well-being and dignity of all people everywhere”.17 Drawing especially on the “capabilities framework” developed by Amartya Sen,18 this literature highlights both the intrinsic value of human rights for development, and their instrumental value to improve outcomes for sustainable development. Human rights and development are thus mutually reinforcing: “human rights add a qualitative dimension to national development strategies, by ensuring a consistent focus on equitable outcomes and the poorest.”19 With this approach, reducing inequalities within societies is understood not only as a public policy objective in its own right, but also as a catalyst for poverty reduction.20 More inclusive policies and economies, with more accountable governments, also tend to be more successful at sustaining economic growth.21 As stated in the World Bank’s 2006 World Development Report: [E]quity is complementary, in some fundamental respects, to the pursuit of long-term prosperity. Institutions and policies that promote a level playing field – where all members of society have similar chances to become socially active, politically influential, and economically productive – contribute to sustainable growth and development. Greater equity is thus doubly good for poverty reduction: through potential beneficial effects on aggregate long-run development and through greater opportunities for poorer groups within any society…. 15. Declaration on the Right to Development, UN General Assembly Resolution 41/128, 4 December 1986, preamble, para. 2 www.ohchr.org/en/ instruments-mechanisms/instruments/declaration-right-development. See also OHCHR, “Realizing the right to development” (Geneva: United Nations, 2013), www.ohchr.org/en/development/realizing-right-development-ebook. 16. See, notably, Philip Alston and Mary Robinson, eds., Human Rights and Development: Towards Mutual Reinforcement (Washington, D.C.: OUP for World Bank, 2005), https://academic.oup.com/book/4642; OECD and World Bank, Integrating Human Rights into Development: Donor Approaches, Experiences and Challenges, Second ed., 2013, https://doi.org/10.1787/9789264202108-en. 17. UNDP, "Human development report 2000: human rights and human development" (New York: United Nations, 2000), https://hdr.undp.org/content/ human-development-report-2000. 18. Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 19. OECD Development Assistance Committee, “Action-oriented policy paper on human rights and development”, 2007, DCD/DAC(2007)15, https://one. oecd.org/document/DCD/DAC(2007)15/FINAL/en/pdf. 20. UNDP, “Human development report 2005: international cooperation at a crossroads: aid, trade and security in an unequal world” (New York: United Nations, 2005), 6, https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2005. 21. Aart Kraay, Pablo Zoido-Lobaton and Daniel Kaufmann, “Governance matters”, Policy Research Working Paper (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 1999), https://documents1.worldbank.org/curated/en/665731468739470954/pdf/multi-page.pdf; James Robinson and Daron Acemoglu, Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty (Random House, 2012); Brian Levy, Working with the Grain: Integrating Governance and Growth in Development Strategies (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2014); for a summary of the different currents within this literature, see Thomas Carothers and Brechenmacher, “Accountability, Transparency, Participation, and Inclusion: A New Development Consensus?” (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2014), https://carnegieendowment.org/2014/10/20/accountability-transparency-participation-andinclusion-new-development-consensus-pub-56968. 20