Leaving No One Behind: Statelessness and the Sustainable Development Goals ! F) The impact of Colombia’s grant of nationality to the children of Venezuelan migrants and refugees An important example of a positive approach to large-scale movements of refugees and migrants, and the prevention of statelessness among their children, is Colombia’s provision of first a temporary and then a ten-year residence permit to 2.8 million Venezuelans who had moved to Colombia, in addition to humanitarian support and access to services. This approach has helped to create opportunities for medium- and long-term integration. The employment of Venezuelans with regularized status in the formal sector increased by 10 per cent and incomes by up to 31 per cent, with only negligible effects on the formal employment of national workers.71 In parallel, children born in Colombia to Venezuelan parents, otherwise at risk of statelessness, were granted Colombian citizenship.72 A total of 110,549 children had benefited from this grant by July 2024.73 A study on the cohort of children of Venezuelan parents born in Colombia who benefited provides good evidence for the positive impacts of this programme. In particular, the children who were granted Colombian nationality had higher rates of participation in early years education, while the end of the programme had correspondingly negative impacts on the children born after the cut-off date, whose profiles were otherwise similar.74 This temporary and exceptional measure was extended for two more years in August 2023.75 3.4 Health and education SDG3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages SDG4: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all The importance of health and education to individuals, communities and states is recognized by their inclusion in SDGs 3 and 4, which are preceded only by the ending of poverty and hunger within the list of Goals. The rights to health and education are also established as State obligations by the international human rights treaties, including Articles 12 and 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).76 The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has commented that “The ground of nationality should not bar access to Covenant rights ... [, which] apply to everyone, including non-nationals, 71. World Bank, “World development report 2023”, 227 Box 7.6 “Creating better outcomes through integration: lessons from Colombia". 72. World Bank, “World development report 2023”. Abraham Puche, “¿Cómo los hijos de migrantes venezolanos nacidos en Colombia pueden adquirir la nacionalidad?” Conectando Caminos por los Derechos & Colombia, Check 18 May 2022 https://colombiacheck.com/investigaciones/como-los-hijosde-migrantes-venezolanos-nacidos-en-colombia-pueden-adquirir-la. 73. The #IBelong Campaign: A Decade of Action to End Statelessness, 2014-2024, p.19. The #IBelong Campaign: A Decade of Action to End Statelessness, 2014-2024 - World | ReliefWeb. 74. Britta Rude, “Ending statelessness for displaced children: impact on early childhood education”, Working Paper (Munich: IFO Institute, 2023), https:// www.ifo.de/publikationen/2023/working-paper/ending-statelessness-displaced-children-impact-early-childhood. 75. Communication from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the National Civil Registry Office, Colombia (unpublished document), August 2023. 76. Article 2(3) of the ICESCR does include a provision, added on the request of former colonies which had recently gained independence, that ‘developing countries, with due regard to human rights and their national economy, may determine to what extent they would guarantee the economic rights recognized in the present Covenant to non-nationals’. This provision was intended to allow states whose economies were dominated by the influence of non-nationals (usually from the former colonial power) to protect the position of their nationals and address persistent inequalities. That is, it was not intended to affect the position of disadvantaged groups such as stateless persons. See: Ben Saul, David Kinley, and Jacqueline Mowbray, “Article 2(3): Non-nationals in developing states”, in The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: Commentary, Cases, and Materials (Oxford University Press, 2014), https://opil.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law/9780199640300.001.0001/law-9780199640300-chapter-5. 30