Addressing statelessness in a changing world – using the 2025 GRF Progress Review to assess progress made since the 2024 High-Level Segment on Statelessness

UNHCR’s Global Refugee Forum Progress Review - An opportunity to reflect on progress? 

UNHCR’s Global Refugee Forum Progress Review took place in Geneva last month on 15-17 December 2025 and was attended by over 1500 representatives from over 150 countries, including governments, regional institutions, UN agencies, private organisations, civil society and impacted persons. We/ENS were proud to be there as part of a delegation of over 20 advocates working on statelessness, including other sister regional networks and stateless-led organisations.  

The discussions over three days provided an important opportunity to review progress on a range of issues under UNHCR’s mandate, including statelessness. 

 When assessing progress, it’s important to recognise the extent to which the world has changed since the High-Level Segment in October 2024. The dramatic, overnight, and unprecedented foreign aid cuts imposed by the United States Government in early 2025 have unleashed a tidal wave across the humanitarian and human rights sectors causing wide-ranging impacts across the globe. The harshest impact has been felt directly and tragically by vulnerable impacted communities, but the cuts have also hit CSOs and UN agencies hard, undermining their ability to deliver their mandates. In less than a year, UNHCR has lost over a third of its total budget and an even greater proportion of its workforce. This has also had knock-on impacts on CSO implementing partners, many of whom also lost US funding and/or find themselves now competing for dwindling resources in an increasingly challenging funding landscape. Moreover, under its new Administration the US has gone from being a global champion on addressing statelessness to a disruptive force systematically seeking to undermine multilateralism and the international rule-based order. It was little surprise when the US unceremoniously withdrew its membership of the GAtES Advisory Committee last year. 

It’s also important to acknowledge that it is only a little over a year since the Global Alliance to End Statelessness was launched, that important progress has already been made and that more time will be needed for its full development. Also welcome is the energetic and inclusive way in which UNHCR has taken forward its Secretariat role. ENS has been an active member and supporter of GAtES from the outset, forming part of the Taskforce established to advise on its foundational elements and currently sitting on its Advisory Committee (see the full composition here). More broadly, our strong partnership with UNHCR’s Europe Bureau and Division of International Protection stretches back over more than a decade. As part of this, we always try to act as a critical friend to UNHCR constructively challenging as well as supporting its global efforts to address statelessness, including through GAtES. 

With this in mind, I want to reflect in turn on initial progress made under each of the five benchmarking criteria I set out in my blog back in October 2024. 

Is GAtES facilitating a truly multistakeholder approach? 

From the outset, GAtES has been unequivocal in recognising that progress on statelessness is only possible if all stakeholders are involved working together to identify and deliver change. This includes concrete engagement with its Solutions Seeker Programme at country and regional level. So, is this happening? 

The short answer is broadly, yes. However, at the same time question marks remain as to whether all the actors needed to galvanise meaningful progress and secure concrete law and policy reforms are currently at the table. 

GAtES has done well to attract 182 members in little over a year, with particularly strong recruitment of CSOs and stateless-led organisations (86 and 30 respectively amounting to 64% of total membership). There has also been relatively strong sign-up by inter-governmental organisations and UN agencies (12 and 5 respectively). However, so far only 28 governments have joined (15% of total membership), and of these, only three countries (Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, and the Philippines) have become Solution Seekers. It is of course still early days, and there remains time to address this. However, it will be important to diversify membership as otherwise this imbalance may frustrate a truly multistakeholder approach and ultimately limit GAtES’s ability to fulfil its full potential. 

Has there been greater resourcing for civil society, including at the local level? 

It seems self-evident that ensuring the full participation of civil society and community representatives as part of an effective multistakeholder approach will require proper resourcing. This should be viewed from a starting point that the statelessness field has historically been chronically under-funded. More broadly, it’s clear that significantly increased bilateral and multilateral funding is essential for all relevant actors to finance effective multistakeholder approaches over the coming years. Is this happening?  

With some exceptions, the reality is that it is not, or at least not to the extent needed to plug historic gaps, let alone support vital increased and concerted action. To start with, UNHCR’s own resourcing channelled to civil society has significantly decreased across the board as a result of current budgetary challenges. Against this backdrop, it has been welcome to see some continued funding support to CSOs by the UNHCR Europe, MENA and Asia Bureaux. However, overall, the loss of UNHCR funding (often the only resourcing available to civil society for statelessness work) to both national and regional CSOs is compounding an already unprecedentedly tough fundraising climate with many organisations facing a very real threat to their continued existence. Initiatives such as the Global Statelessness Fund are helping to plug some of these gaps, at least for stateless-led organisations, but many organisations working in this space are struggling for survival. 

Also important to welcome is how UNHCR’s Statelessness Section prioritised funding regional statelessness networks to support their engagement with GAtES during the second half of 2025, notwithstanding budgetary challenges. However, much more funding will be needed to maintain this impetus in 2026 and beyond. One possible avenue for further funding is the GAtES Online Marketplace, which received over 30 innovative project proposals following a recent call. However, bilateral or other new donors still need to be found to commit funding to support these projects if they are to become a reality. Sensitising and attracting such donors therefore needs to be a key priority for all actors during 2026. 

Has GAtES been able to cultivate an active and engaged membership? 

One potential faultline with the Global Alliance has always been the risk that it fails to deliver action beyond broad support of its objectives by its members. There is a particular risk that governments and other entities join up but pay only lip service rather than delivering reform. This is a challenge faced by many alliances. So, how is GAtES faring? 

The jury is still out, and more time is needed to properly assess this. However, one concern already evident is that while a relatively high number of States have joined (28 in total), very few have come forward as Solution Seekers (only 3 in total), or pledged new commitments or concrete reforms. This creates the risk of GAtES becoming more a façade of action rather than a dynamic alliance driving forward concrete reforms, which it rightly strives to be. Avoiding this will require all actors - particularly UNHCR’s senior leadership, Regional Bureaux Directors, and Country Representatives - to put their weight behind concerted advocacy to convince many more countries to become Solution Seekers. This will require appropriate investment of time, as well as strategic collaboration with other actors at country level, including CSOs and community members. 

Moreover, it’s certainly welcome that GAtES has been able to convene such an impressive number of Regional Network Labs and knowledge exchange webinars since its launch last year. This capacity-building function has always been an integral and important component. However, attention also needs to be paid to the composition of participants at these webinars – specifically as to whether they are attracting sufficient government representatives and decision-makers with the power to impact change, and how they are translating into tangible action (the ‘catalyst’ part). It will be important to monitor and evaluate this over the coming months and years, and to make course corrections if necessary. 

How is UNHCR prioritisation, programming and leadership on statelessness? 

Despite progress made through its decade-long #IBelong campaign, when this concluded in 2024 it was evident that UNHCR would need to significantly scale-up rather than reduce its programming and prioritisation of statelessness in order to meet its stated ambition to eradicate the phenomenon entirely. The unprecedented budget cuts it has faced since then mean that this question now needs to be framed and asked with appreciation of this new and unprecedently challenging operational context. It is patently evident that the Agency has had to make unenviably difficult choices this past year, and has lost huge swathes of its experienced workforce. 

Given this context, it is not surprising that prioritisation and programming of statelessness work has been significantly reduced over the last 15 months. However, there is a sense that cuts to statelessness programming have been relatively greater than to other areas of UNHCR’s mandate. Many would also argue that these cuts risk having a disproportionate impact given the specialist nature of statelessness work and the fact that so much in-house expertise has been lost.  

Over the last year, there has been a significant reduction in overall staffing of dedicated statelessness posts. Statelessness Regional Protection Officer posts have been deleted in Africa, MENA, and the Americas, as well as several country-level posts. In all regions, numerous country offices have either been closed or downsized to such an extent that little or no meaningful statelessness capacity remains in place at national level, with few or no partnerships retained with national CSO implementing partners (including in Europe). Unless able to be reversed, this will significantly undermine the ability of UNHCR to fulfil its mandate on statelessness, or to be able to monitor developments, let alone support solutions or ensure adequate levels of legal assistance to impacted populations. Of course, UNHCR is very much aware of and seeking to plug these gaps, but it may now be incumbent on other actors, including CSOs, to try to find new ways to step in to support and complement these efforts. There also needs to be transparency in recognising the extent of these protection gaps on the ground, and the resultant risk this poses to stateless populations. 

Amongst all this, a notable bright spot has been the continued engagement with and prioritisation of statelessness work by UNHCR’s Europe Bureau which has retained a dedicated Statelessness Regional Protection Officer post, as well as renewed its partnership with ENS for 2026, albeit at a reduced level. The UNHCR Asia Bureau has also retained a dedicated Statelessness Regional Protection Officer post, although other statelessness posts were cut. This shows that maintaining some prioritisation of statelessness programming is possible despite the challenging overall operational and budget context. Now we need to see more consistency across UNHCR, and the same approach adopted by all Regional Bureaux.  

At a structural level, in the face of ongoing cuts, it will also be important for UNHCR to guard against adopting an overly centralised approach towards addressing statelessness, and it must be recognised that concrete law and policy reform usually happen at the national or regional level. Hence continued strong prioritising and programming by Regional Bureaux locally will be critical, supported by an adequately resourced and capacitated Statelessness Section in UNHCR’s Division of International Protection in Geneva. 

To what extent is lived experience and expertise being centred in collective efforts? 

From the outset a core commitment of GAtES has been to centre stateless people, so to what extent has this manifested in practice? 

Here, it is of course the assessment of stateless advocates themselves that matters most, and it is they who can best answer this question. But overall, it seems to be the case that in its coordination of GAtES, UNHCR has consistently tried to engage people with lived experience and representatives of impacted communities, including on all of its event panels and through its Advisory Committee and wider governance. 

However, ongoing attention is needed to ensure that stateless people do not simply appear on podiums as examples of progress or manifestations of solutions designed and championed by others. Instead, they are the key architects of reform and must be able to claim power as leaders of change. This distinction must not be lost on any of us. Collectively we should also not lose sight of the need to address barriers that frustrate this, whether lack of resourcing or anything else that impedes the shift in power necessary to facilitate centring the expertise and leadership of those impacted by statelessness and their communities. 

Finding positive connectivity in Geneva 

Overall, the above scorecard reveals a mixed picture in terms of progress with UNHCR-led efforts to address statelessness, including though GAtES. It’s also clear that more time is needed to properly benchmark and monitor progress on an ongoing multiannual basis. And again, it’s important to acknowledge the uniquely challenging operational context caused by recent budget cuts and geopolitical developments.  

It’s also helpful to situate this assessment and to seek to find optimism in the positive dialogue and discussion that occurred at the GRF Progress Review last month. There was certainly much useful connectivity to be found during the three days spent with colleagues and allies in Geneva.  

Particularly welcome was the open and constructive approach evident in exchange with UNHCR’s senior leadership. I had the opportunity to organise a meeting (our fourth such meeting in recent years) of our delegation comprising 15 civil society and stateless-led organisations with UNHCR Assistant High Commissioner, Ruven Menikdiwela, and UNHCR Director of Division of International Protection, Elizabeth Tan. This meeting was characterised by a refreshing honesty about the scale of the challenge faced on both sides, and a desire to focus on where best to work together and how to combine limited resources for maximum impact. 

Similarly, the UNHCR Statelessness Section organised a well-attended side event ‘Legal Identity for All: Addressing Statelessness to achieve SDGs’, which was moderated by ENS Vice Chair of Trustees Aleksandra Semeriak. ENS was also delighted to co-sponsor a linked event organised by the Global Campaign for Equal Nationality Rights ‘Solutions to Statelessness: Multistakeholder Action to Achieve Equal Nationality Rights for All’. Moderated by Neha Gurung from CAPN, this event also included four other speakers from stateless-led organisations alongside the Assistant High Commissioner and representatives from the UK and Philippines governments. In parallel, during the plenary sessions several governments provided updates on positive progress made implementing pledges on statelessness, which was a prominent cross-cutting theme throughout the GRF Progress Review.   

Looking ahead – what’s next? 

In an intervention I made in plenary, I called on the outgoing High Commissioner to make statelessness prominent as part of his handover to the new High Commissioner Barham Salih. Over the coming months we will be seeking to engage directly with the new High Commissioner to discuss this and the importance of UNHCR maintaining a strong focus on the issue under his tenure. 

Of course, the fight to end statelessness does not only rest with UNHCR so continued attention is also needed to engage other relevant actors. In this regard, it’s welcome that the UN Secretary-General’s Guidance Note on Statelessness is currently being updated, with scope to galvanise increased multi-agency action across the UN and beyond.  

Finally, we as civil society also need to maintain a strong presence and engagement, notwithstanding the challenging funding and political climate we currently find ourselves in. We at ENS start the new year with optimism, and ready and determined to do that!