1. Context Globally, millions of people including many in the Great Lakes Region are stateless or at risk of statelessness, which limits their enjoyment of the full range of human rights. Among the causes of statelessness in the Great Lakes Region are gaps in nationality laws and policies that leave some people without recognition of the nationality of any State. Even though there is no comprehensive legal framework to address these gaps, efforts have been made by Member States of the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region (ICGLR) to resolve this problem, by amongst others, acceding to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and/or the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness. Furthermore, Heads of States and Governments adopted the Dar-Es-Salaam Declaration on Peace, Security, Democracy and Development in the Great Lakes Region on 24 November 2004 (so called Dar-Es-Salaam Declaration) and signed the Pact on Security, Stability and Development in the Great Lakes Region on 15 December 2006. These instruments address some dimensions of statelessness, like paragraph 68 of the Dar-EsSalaam Declaration in which States commit to adopt a common regional approach for the ratification and implementation of the UN Conventions on Statelessness, harmonize national legislations and standards, and to provide refugees and displaced persons with identification documents enabling them to have access to basic social services and exercise their rights. The Declaration on Peace, Security, Democracy and Development crowned by the entry into force of the Pact on Security, Stability and Development in June 2008 is a historical instrument and a milestone in the fight against statelessness in the Great Lakes Region. The Declaration was adopted during the first summit of Heads of States and Governments in Dar-EsSalaam Tanzania from19-20 November 2004 under the auspices of the United Nations and the African Union. In the spirit of the Dar-Es-Salaam Declaration, the ICGLR adopted a regional programme of action on the Humanitarian and Social Questions in August 2016: “Framework of Durable Solutions on Humanitarian, Social and Environmental Questions in the Great Lakes Region”. This programme translates the commitments of Heads of States and Governments into concrete actions in the areas of human rights protection and security. It sets out support measures the ICGLR and the UNHCR can provide to Member States as defined in the paragraph 68 of the Dar-Es-Salaam Declaration and point 4.1.1 of the Regional Programme of Action on Humanitarian and Social Questions relating to the respect of legal international and regional instruments on international human rights law, international humanitarian law, the issuance of identity documents to internally displaced persons, refugees and stateless. It includes measures which the ICGLR will adopt in order to ensure the monitoring of requests issued by Member States and national monitoring mechanisms on the implementation of each Member State. 2