Digital Birth Registration:Using Mobile Phones to Count Every Child

What is Digital Birth Registration?

Digital Birth Registration:• Is a comprehensive process model for birth registration via mobile phones• Provides a suite of technical, program and advocacy support • Creates a digital ‘mIdentity’ (on the caregiver’s phone)

Digital Birth Registration is not:• A technical, ‘one size fits all’ solution• Creating an mIdentity to replace paper certificates• The best method for all countries, it compliments Plan’s broader UBR work

Similar Initiatives

Senegal KenyaUganda

TurkeySri Lanka

High Level DBR Process

Digital Birth Registration benefits:Guardian and child

• Locality • Simplicity• Timely identification• Access to key services• Future mobile offerings

Digital Birth Registration benefits:Government

• Improved registration rates• Sustainable, scalable model• Strategic identity platform • Digitised data • Timely data collection • Availability of data • Data Security• Costs

Digital Birth Registration benefits:Mobile Operators

• Opportunity to establish a PPP• Trusted relationship with government• Strengthen brand within the community• Strategic framework for other mInitiatives

Plan’s role

Plan has:• Deep knowledge of birth registration (and the associated complications) through the

Count Every Child campaign• A trusted presence within many of the most marginalised communities• A strong relationship with many of the key governments at the local and national

level due to previous birth registration advocacy/initiatives

Plan is:• Ideally positioned to bridge the gap between mobile operators, governments and key

parties to ensure the solution has child rights at the centre and is sustainable

Next Steps

• Plan is currently mobilising a central IAB programme team to support a coordinated approach across the organisation

• Working with partners on a generic process model to capture the requirements for a technical solution

• Completing market assessments of potential pilot countries to confirm the key criteria for implementation e.g. government support, infrastructure, mobile operator landscape

Thank you

FAQs

Who is the Registration Agent?• Plan will work with the government to clarify the key criteria for selecting the registration agents

and the governments will appoint the necessary. This could be: community health workers, police, priests, imams etc.

What if the family doesn’t have a phone?• The country selection process will initially focus on countries where large numbers of people can

benefit. However, families without mobiles will also benefit as their child will exist in the government database at an earlier stage and the paper certificate process is simplified

Is the intention to have one global solution?• The aim is to create a ‘best practice’ global framework which can be tailored to each

implementation country. For example, the government will appoint the registration agents, establish the terms of the relationship with mobile operators, determine the security level given to the mIdentity and hence determine which services can be accessed

Will paper certificates still be required?• It is likely that paper certificates will be produced in tandem during the transition, the intention

of the concept is not to replace the paper certificate as such, but to reduce the urgency to acquire a paper certificate, reduce the barriers to registration and enable digitalisation of child data.

FAQs

What about the risks of digital data collection?• The concept includes a risk assessment (e.g. child protection, fraud) and includes potential

mitigating actions as well as highlighting the risks contained within the current process. Although the solution will need to be tailored to each country, the key risks are expected to decrease through implementing IAB. However, it is important to note that no process (manual or digitised) can claim to be 100% risk-free. Instead the risk profile must be managed effectively.

How will the process be sustained?• Plan will work very closely with the relevant government authorities to ensure limited

dependence post-pilot. The process will be incorporated into current civil registration eco-system, with the aim of improving the registration of other civil registration events in the future.

How will the Public Private Partnership work in-country?• The concept contains potential PPP models, but this will need to be tailored to each country.

How does this differ from other initiatives?• IAB re-engineers the birth registration process, using mobile devices as an enabler. It goes

beyond digitising the collection of birth registration data and creates an identity for the child at the point of registration.