88 Brad K. Blitz improving birth registration, and providing training.81 What is more, UNHCR has also set itself further annual targets, including that 100,000 individuals will acquire nationality or have it confirmed by the end of 2020.82 Furthermore, although UNHCR has improved its data collection, the significant gaps in its coverage and quality of information presented undermine its advocacy efforts. UNHCR has not yet arrived at a consistent position on the inclusion of those who do not neatly fall within its mandate. There is a lack of disaggregation in the figures presented, which leaves UNHCR’s data open to misinterpretation. It remains unclear if those with indeterminate status are truly considered stateless for the purposes of estimation. Until recently, UNHCR gave the impression of an agency that was driving forward its ambitions blind to the aforementioned substantive methodological considerations. Official publications from 2019 now qualify that the data presented are incomplete, and on its website, there is an apologetic note which explains that it compiles data on two categories: stateless persons who meet the Convention definition (de jure), and persons with undetermined nationality, but that over the past decade these and the de facto category “have sometimes been applied inconsistently in different UNHCR country operations for the annual statistical reporting process.”83 Despite these problems, the UNHCR continues to present as reliable the statistical information it has collected, which omits estimates from highly populated regions of the world where discrimination based on nationality, the denial of documents, and the refusal to accede to – and abide by – international legal instruments and standards are the norm. The same criticism could be leveled at UNHCR’s most vocal advocates, which published simplistic accounts that reiterated the agency’s claims and repeated its calculation errors,84 though eventually they too started to raise questions.85 Operational Challenges and Methodological Solutions This account illustrates just how difficult it is for humanitarian agencies, including UNHCR, to establish accurate figures. It also records how institutional preferences 81 In the 2019 High-Level Segment on Statelessness during the Executive Committee gathering held on October 7, 2019, UNHCR reported that 252 of these pledges were delivered by States, 70 by civil society organizations, and 38 by international and regional organizations. See UNHCR, “Results of the High Level Segment on Statelessness,” www.unhcr.org/ibelong/ results-of-the-high-level-segment-on-statelessness/. 82 UNHCR, “UNHCR in 2020,” https://reporting.unhcr.org/sites/default/files/ga2020/pdf/Chapter_ Overview.pdf. 83 See UNHCR, “Measuring Forced Displacement and Statelessness,” www.unhcr.org/refugeestatistics/methodology/. 84 See Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, The World’s Stateless, https://files.institutesi.org/ worldsstateless.pdf. 85 Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion, “Statelessness in Numbers: 2019 – An Overview and Analysis of Global Statistics,” https://files.institutesi.org/ISI_statistics_analysis_2019.pdf. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108914994 Published online by Cambridge University Press