About the Fund
Statelessness denies millions basic rights. The Global Statelessness Fund supports efforts to end it through grants and advocacy.
About the Global Statelessness Fund
Statelessness – being denied any nationality – is an extreme form of exclusion and a growing global problem. Stateless people are routinely denied fundamental human rights to education, healthcare, housing, employment, social protection, family life, documentation, free movement, political participation, and access to justice.
The Global Statelessness Fund is an initiative co-created by leaders and activists impacted by statelessness, civil society organizations, and donors. We believe that responses to statelessness should be led by lived experience to address the real needs of affected communities and lend urgency to the need for change. To catalyze this change the Fund strengthens individual and collective action through participatory flexible transformative grant-making.
As a human rights fund, we fund groups and activists who are impacted by statelessness, provide accompaniment and capacity development support, and collaborate with grantees and other movements to implement advocacy initiatives that strengthen partnerships in the elimination of statelessness and discriminatory nationality laws.
Action for Change
The Global Statelessness Fund believes that the growing problem of statelessness can be most effectively addressed by bringing increased resources directly to people impacted by statelessness and the organizations they lead, supporting their efforts to advocate, organize, educate, and mobilize to advance the rights of stateless individuals and communities.
So far, the Fund has identified the following areas of work and opportunities for change within the stateless community.
Strategic litigation
Several of our grantee partners identify and pursue legal cases as part of their strategy to advance equal nationality rights. Haki Na Sheria in Kenya secured a landmark court victory addressing double registration, resulting in over 30,000 de facto stateless people receiving documentation. The ruling also confirmed that refugee documentation satisfies the lawful residency requirement for citizenship applications, marking a significant shift in how refugee families can access their constitutional rights. Other grantee partners engaged in strategic litigation include the Citizenship Affected People’s Network in Nepal, which works with government officials and lawmakers to achieve gender equality in nationality laws, and Apatride Network, which operates regionally across Europe and has recently provided consultation and advice in a case in Czechia in which the court affirmed the stateless status of an affected group, directly benefiting more than 180 people and creating a pathway to address statelessness for many others.
Campaigning & advocacy
The Fund supports stateless-led groups that lead efforts to combat statelessness through advocacy and campaigning. Among these groups are the Youth Sustainable Development Centre in Eswatini, which campaigns for gender-equal nationality rights in the country, Family Frontiers, which created a movement of impacted people-led advocacy for tangible nationwide change and a constitutional amendment, and the Jinsiyati Campaign, which works to advance women’s equal nationality rights in Lebanon.
Community engagement
Our grantee partners create and foster community and visibility around statelessness issues. These include Statefree, a Germany-based organization that hosts an online forum on statelessness issues and creates a safe space for discussions on statelessness and citizenship rights; Phiren Amenca, which provides important community support to the Roma community in Montenegro and challenges stereotypes and racism; and Taita-Taveta Human Rights Network in Kenya, which works with the Pare community to improve their access to nationality, cultural identity and socio-economic inclusion through community outreach. |
Provision of essential services
Our grantee partners identify gaps in services for stateless people and seek to remedy these situations. These include Oummal, which has established a hotline for stateless people in Lebanon who couldn’t register for vaccine appointments due to lack of documentation, as well as Kashan Academy in Pakistan and Iskul Sama de Laut Omadal in Malaysia, which provide crucial education services and literacy training to stateless children.
Legal Support
The Fund partners with groups that provide legal support to stateless communities to help navigate bureaucratic systems and acquire citizenship when possible. These organizations include Oummal which has set up a peer-support group for stateless people in Lebanon to pursue their legal issues collectively and share knowledge, Bairska Svetlina in North Macedonia who provides free legal support to the Roma community in accessing documentation, and the Council of Minorities which has a team of paralegals providing legal aid to camp-dwelling formerly stateless persons in Bangladesh to help obtain their legal identity documents. |
Education & awareness raising
Stateless-led groups have been raising awareness and providing educational material and outlets on statelessness. Among others, the Fund supports the Rohingya Human Rights Initiative and Rohingyatographer, which covers Rohingya-related news and events and updates the international community, as well as Northern Arabia’s Surviving Indigeneity, who documents and shares stories about the stateless Bidoon community via social media, workshops, and reports. |
Our reach
Statelessness is a multifaceted issue caused and perpetuated by discrimination on various grounds such as race, ethnicity, gender, disability, and socio-economic status. The Fund recognizes the intersectional nature of statelessness and aims to support individuals and groups with different yet interrelated and complementary areas of focus that aim to combat statelessness and advocate for equal nationality rights.
Women
Children
Childhood statelessness is one of the main factors of statelessness globally. Stateless children are often vulnerable and marginalized with limited access to their rights. The Fund supports organizations that aim to eliminate childhood statelessness and provide essential services to stateless children. These organizations offer alternative non-formal education and literacy training to stateless children and aim to reduce childhood statelessness by using digital innovations to simplify the birth registration processes.
Refugees & Migrants
Statelessness and forced migration have close causal links and being stateless poses additional challenges and vulnerabilities to migrants. The Fund supports refugee & migrant rights organizations that were established by and advocate for stateless groups.
Minorities
Racial, ethnic, and religious discrimination against minorities is a major driver of statelessness. Additionally, statelessness exacerbates the difficulties that minorities face. The Global Statelessness Fund connects with and supports impacted person-led organizations advocating for equal nationality rights for minorities.