Telenor Initiative In collaboration with UNICEF ; Digital Birth Registration Project ; “ Giving Identity To The invisibles “ ( No Child Left Behind )

Abstract

Birth registration of a child via official channels can help and guarantee a child access to a number of vital services, including healthcare and immunisations, education and social protections. For example, as a child grows, the birth registration safeguards the child against forced labour, early marriage or recruitment into the military, and later in life it can enable them to acquire national identity documents, vote in elections, gain formal employment, own property, or access formal financial services. If we look from the perspective of national governments, this birth registration can be and can serve as an essential tool for effective planning and monitoring of the delivery of public services, development policies and infrastructure programmes. These are the reasons, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, and a number of other international treaties, guarantee every child the right to be registered at birth, and the right to both a name and nationality. However, along with these treaties and a lot of work done in this direction it is still estimated that 230 million children worldwide – nearly one third of the global under five population – are not being officially registered at birth , and every year at least more than 50 million additional children are born into this state of invisibility. The World Health Organisation estimates that nearly 80% of unregistered children live in either South Asia or sub-Saharan Africa1 , and data from UNICEF shows that in most countries, children who are poor or live in rural areas are significantly less likely to have their births registered or to possess a birth certificate.i