Improving civil registration

There are three keys to civil registration: 1) advocacy about the importance of registering both births and deaths, and also causes of death to improve health systems – which improves the overall well-being of citizens; 2) incentives for families to register such as access to school and health services; 3) collaboration among local, state and central government levels. Central governments have a huge capacity and funding in most cases, but it is the local level that has the access to each birth and death.

Civil Registration, the first and main basic human right, provides the entitlement to be recognized as a living human being and with such, entitlement to access to food, schooling and health services. It also provides citizenship and helps people to obtain jobs and to live a respectful and productive life. One of the main problems, however, is that many people do not understand how important an ID is even in the middle of 2020.

It serves all citizens, especially in least developed countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The main goal of this project is to provide an ID to all citizens especially in remote areas like in South Asia or Africa. Unfortunately, the IT revolution cannot really change the common paper recording of a birth or death. This is the mission of village leaders and local governments. What they can do is once it is recorded, they can send it through email or through an IT system that only they might have access to at local government offices – electricity and internet-connection permitting.

When recording the identity of a human being, there are many things in play. Mothers might be far away from a government office and it costs a lot to move there for a certificate. They do not even know why a certificate is important. The fact that the children below five years of age, as well as their mothers, have good access to health services is key to the development of any country.