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UNESCO and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Kazakhstan are organizing a raising awareness campaign among youth to increase the level of literacy about statelessness in Central Asia and to teach them more about prevention tools in order to reduce difficulties for future generations.


Joint activities will include:

- capacity-building trainings
- social network contests
- lectures, seminars
- brainstormings

Statelessness is a global issue. At present there are at least 10 million persons living worldwide without a nationality and facing limitations in relation to the enjoyment of their basic human rights. Over 140,000 stateless persons have been identified in five States of Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan).

Greater engagement of UN Agencies for the promotion of prevention and reduction of statelessness has been undertaken, following the publication of the Guidance Note of the UN Secretary-General on Statelessness issued in 2011.

The UN tackles both the causes and consequences of statelessness as a key priority within the Organization’s broader efforts to strengthen the rule of law. This statement is further strenghtened by the UN’s commitment made to “leave no one behind” in the context of the 2030 Agenda of Sustainable Development Goals. In other words, this means that “a goal should be met for and by everyone” and this obviously includes stateless persons as well.