Policy Briefing:

Universal Birth Registration

in Emergencies

Registering a birth is the first legal acknowledgement of a child’s existence; without proof
of identity a child is invisible to the authorities. Registration entitles children to their rights
and helps build a protective environment against abuse, exploitation and violence1,
especially during and after conflicts, when state, community and social structures break
down.
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Articles 7 and 8 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) acknowledge the importance
of the right to an identity, including name and nationality. However, each year 51 million children i.e. one in three
across the world go unregistered - 23 million in South Asia alone. Sub-Saharan Africa has the highest percentage
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(66%) of unregistered under-five-year-olds. Since the majority of countries with less than 40% of registered children
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are war-affected, this policy brief focuses on the importance of birth registration in emergency situations and provides
examples of successful programme work that could be scaled up to protect even more children.

Birth registration is crucial in emergencies

In almost all emergencies – armed conflicts, natural or manmade disasters and mass population displacements –
children can become separated from their families or care givers. Without the protection and care of their families,
they are vulnerable to abuse, exploitation and recruitment into armed groups. Unregistered children are particularly at
risk as there is no legal evidence of their existence, making them far harder to trace and perpetrators much more
difficult to prosecute. Birth registration represents one of the tools of protection unaccompanied or separated children
need in times of emergency; the first step reducing disaster risks in any society is knowing who is vulnerable –
unregistered children are invisible and may well be missed in disaster risk reduction planning.

Even when children are registered, in the chaos of emergencies, many documents, including birth certificates, are lost
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or left behind in the rush to flee to safe places, or destroyed by flood or fire, for example.

The implications of not having legal identification are serious. Apart from increased risk of exploitation and abuse, a
birth certificate is often required to receive services. During the 2010 floods in Pakistan, for example, mothers and
their children without identity cards or birth certificates could not register at certain camps and were therefore unable
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to receive aid . Unregistered separated children are also at greater risk of not being reunited with their families.
Having a legal identity also offers a degree of legal protection, and can help children claim their inheritance rights,
which is particularly important for orphans and child-headed households.

In the immediate aftermath of an emergency, birth registration can:

help identify unaccompanied and separated children and therefore facilitate their reunification with their parents,
siblings or other members of their family
facilitate access to entitlements and aid services in camps, including food, education and health care
provide governments and aid agencies with accurate population data and statistics to focus emergency efforts
efficiently
help prevent the trafficking of vulnerable children by proving the identity of a child’s parent or care giver
help protect children from recruitment into armed groups by providing proof of their age
help identify refugee children in order to ensure access to aid services.

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In the longer-term, birth registration can:
facilitate access to basic services such as education and healthcare
help protect children from underage military services
help reunite former child soldiers with their families and to prosecute abductors by legally establishing a child’s
age at the time of recruitment
help reunite trafficked children with their communities and prosecute abductors
help enforce laws relating to the minimum age for employment and assist in efforts to prevent child labour
help counter early marriage
Facilitate the acquisition of nationality and therefore help prevent child statelessness

Challenges
During emergencies:
unregistered children may be ignored
birth records may be destroyed or lost
conflict may prevent access to civil registration offices
conflict can lead to the collapse of the civil registration system
population displacements within or across state borders may prevent parents from registering their children
the fact that only males can register a child in some countries further limits registration when families are
separated in emergencies and left without a male representative
fear of ethnic, cultural or religious discrimination, particularly in civil conflicts, may prevent parents from registering
their children. In Rwanda, during the 1994 genocide for example, birth certificates were used to identify the ethnic
origins of children and to commit targeted atrocities.

When an emergency arises, it is imperative to identify, register and document both unaccompanied and separated
children as quickly as possible. This helps protect them and assists in tracing their families. Identification and
registration of children should be established and verified through interviews with the child and members of the
community.

To maintain this level of child protection, alternative and temporary measures must be implemented to maintain birth
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records during emergencies. Several experiences have demonstrated that birth registration is feasible even during
conflict. In Sierra Leone for instance, an informal birth registration system that had been developed by local leaders
continued even during the 1991–2002 civil war. It is also possible to build on temporary measures to improve birth
registration and secure a long-term system. In Uganda, for example, emergency measures have been gradually
incorporated into the national birth registration strategy.

What Plan does

The Universal Birth Registration campaign
Plan’s work on birth registration first started in 1998 in Asia before being extended to Africa and Latin America.
Launched in 2005, ‘Universal Birth Registration’ is Plan’s first global campaign. It has a simple demand: ensure that
every child has a birth certificate.
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In just five years, Plan has facilitated the registration of more than 40 million people, mostly children, in 32 countries.
Plan has used innovative techniques, including new technology and mobile registration units to reach remote areas
and hard-to-reach communities. By working with partner organisations, including UN agencies and governments, Plan
helped to improve the law in ten countries. Many examples listed below took place in non-emergency settings but

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many can be implemented during emergencies – mobile registration units, for example – or included in disaster
preparedness to prevent children being left without legal documentation.

Actions taken at field level8

Increasing awareness
In many countries, families do not register their children because they are not aware of its importance or do not know
how to get a birth certificate. Illiteracy also represents a serious obstacle for many parents. Awareness-raising
campaigns through community work and using the media have proved to be effective. For example:
In Uganda, Plan’s information campaign, delivered mostly via radio programmes, helped to increase the birth
registration rate from 45% to 69% in just eight months. This included more than 550,000 children being
registered.
In Mali, Plan produced 11,600 printed copies of a citizens’ guide to registration in five local languages and
produced more than 1,600 audio and video copies for those who were unable to read.

Mobile registration
Geographical distance is also a barrier to birth registration. Mobile registration units have proved to be a very effective
strategy to deal with the issue of accessibility in many countries where Plan operates:
In Cambodia, where civil records were destroyed by the Khmer Rouge, Plan piloted a mobile registration project
in 2004. Supported by the Ministry of Interior and the Asian Development Bank, the scheme was so successful
that it was extended across the country. Plan provided technical assistance and after ten months more than
seven million Cambodians, close to 50 per cent of the population, had received their birth certificates.
In Ecuador, Plan supported a national campaign initiated by the government. Technical teams were trained and
supplied with satellite kits, mobile phones and access to the internet. Between 2006 and 2008, more than
300,000 young people were registered.

Protecting vital documents

In countries where natural disasters are frequent, protecting vital documents such as birth certificates is crucial. Plan
developed programmes to explain to communities the value of legal documents. This meant the documents were
more likely to be kept somewhere safe, for example in the roof of flood-prone homes, and therefore be retrievable in
an emergency situation.
In Vietnam and Togo, Plan has facilitated the lamination of certificates to keep them dry.
In Cambodia, Plan distributed one million plastic document covers to households.
After the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, Plan not only provided new birth certificates but also distributed protective
plastic covers in Sri Lanka and Indonesia.

Decentralisation
Centralisation of the registration process means many people cannot access it, especially in rural or remote areas. On
the other hand, a strong decentralised system can prevent the civil registration collapsing during emergency
situations. Plan has supported decentralisation in nine countries, often based on new technology:
In Kenya, Plan is currently running a project to computerise local and district-level offices and reduce the time it
takes to register births using mobile phones.
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In Liberia, a decentralised birth registration system was launched in July 2010. Led by the government, this new
system aims to register all the estimated 1.6 million children in the country by the end of 2011. Plan is leading on
awareness and social mobilisation while Crisis Management Initiative is supporting the use of smart phones to
notify births at local level, in partnership with private companies like Nokia. UNHCR is supporting the recording
and documentation process, and UNICEF is investing in the supply of birth certificates, data base development
and training of officials and volunteers. The whole registration process takes a maximum of two weeks.

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Integrating birth registration into health systems
Integration of birth registration and programming for maternal and child health as well as childhood development has
led to great successes:
Plan has trained health workers, including midwives, nurses and traditional birth attendants, in 12 countries to
facilitate the registration of newborn babies. In Zambia for instance, these professionals can now complete
registration forms and pass them to the registration offices.
In many Latin American countries, birth registration units have been integrated into hospitals allowing families to
register newborn babies as soon as possible. In Colombia, these units have been developed in 200 hospitals.

Plan is calling for

UN agencies and donors to:
acknowledge the importance of birth registration in planning aid and services and in tracking progress towards the
Millennium Development Goals based on accurate figures
promote birth registration as an effective disaster risk reduction measure
allocate resources for disaster preparedness, including child protection initiatives, and awareness-raising
campaigns that encourage parents to register their children; and invest in building decentralised civil registration
systems.
National governments to:
ensure birth registration is available and accessible by waiving fees, (including for late registration), and ending
any discrimination by developing or amending registration laws and allocating funds to the civil registration system
facilitate the identification, registration and documentation of unaccompanied and separated children as quickly as
possible, prioritising family reunification
issue new identification documents and birth certificates or replace documents lost in the course of emergencies
and ensure birth registration programmes reach the most marginalised groups in camps and remote areas, for
instance through the deployment of mobile registration teams
develop integrated central databases to ensure adequate recording, transmission, backup and safe keeping of
data, to protect the privacy of this information and to prevent their destruction or misuse in case of wars or natural
disasters.
Donor governments to:
pay increased attention to long-term funding for child protection in emergencies in order to facilitate greater
support to governments and communities taking steps to protect children in emergencies.
ensure funds are always available to continue registration in an emergency, so that lack of funds is never a
reason for births not being registered.
Civil society organisations to:
raise awareness of the importance of birth registration at local, district and national level
support and give relevant information to communities to prevent accidental and deliberate separation.

References
1
UNICEF (2007). Birth Registration and Armed Conflict. Florence, Italy, UNICEF.
2
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) [online]. Available from http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/crc.htm.
3
UNICEF Birth registration fact sheet [online]. Available from http://www.unicef.org/protection/index_birthregistration.html
4
UNICEF (2007). Birth Registration and Armed Conflict. Florence, Italy
5
United Nations (2010). The Rights and Guarantees of Internally Displaced Children in Armed Conflict. New York, UN.
6
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11069470
7
International Committee of the Red Cross (2004). Guiding Principles on Unaccompanied and Separated Children.
8
Plan (2009) Count Every Child – The Right to Birth Registration. Woking, UK.
9
Liberia launches a decentralised birth registration system [online]. Available from http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/rwb.nsf/db900SID/EGUA-
87YS5C?OpenDocument.

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