Birth registration emerges as foundation for digital public infrastructure

Governments and development partners are increasingly pushing to make birth registration and vital statistics (CRVS) a foundational layer of digital public infrastructure (DPI), arguing that establishing legal identity from birth can streamline access to services and help create more connected public systems.

Two case studies by civil registration advocacy organization Vital Strategies, examining Rwanda and Thailand, show how this approach can work in practice and how integrating birth registration with national ID systems can strengthen the foundations for digital identity and public service delivery.

Rwanda and Thailand show the model

In Rwanda, Vital Strategies says digitizing birth registration and integrating it with the national ID system has led to “real-time identity verification and data sharing across previously siloed sectors, yielding core benefits including improved service access, efficiency, and trust, along with higher quality data for policymaking.”

The organization has worked with the country since 2016 to help modernize its CRVS system, moving it from a system in which families often had to travel long distances to register births and deaths, to a decentralized and digitalized one with thousands of registration points.

The efforts, it added, have gone a long way in transforming civil registration to shared public infrastructure through a digital system which now connects with hospitals, government agencies and businesses and supports access to around 200 essential services. As of 2024, the government had digitized about 85 percent of all public services, thanks in large part, to the transition from paper-based records to a fully digitalized platform.

Thailand offers a similar model. Vital Strategies describes the country’s CRVS system as one of the most comprehensive in Southeast Asia. It all began with reforms that not only modernized the system, but led it to near-universal civil registration. The country also went ahead to link the system with a unique 13-digit personal identification number (PIN), in what is described as many years of strategic infrastructure development and legislative reform.

According to the case study, linking the civil registration system with digital public infrastructure has contributed to a number of benefits including access to services, exchange of data through an interoperable “linkage center,” enrollment of newborns for a Universal Coverage Scheme, and the inclusion of stateless persons.

Civil registration becomes digital infrastructure

Citing Rwanda and Thailand, Vital Strategies argues that birth and death registration should be treated as foundational digital public infrastructure rather than a standalone administrative function. Birth registration establishes legal identity, and linking civil registration with national ID systems creates a trusted population register that can support digital identity, public services and interoperable government systems.

Digitizing CRVS alone is no longer enough, the organization argues. Countries must make civil registration the foundation of DPI because when civil registration and national ID databases are not properly linked, discrepancies can emerge between the information held by different government systems which is the situation many countries continue to face. Even a sophisticated biometric system, the experts argue, cannot make up for an identity system that is built on a weak population register.

The case studies reinforce Vital Strategies argument that countries should make birth registration more than just the issuance of certificates. It is the first step in establishing trusted legal identity throughout a person’s life. In April, the organization’s President and CEO, Mary-Ann Etiebet warned that a huge gender gap threatens global legal identity efforts.

Africa’s next CRVS decade

The argument has particular resonance in Africa, where many countries are strengthening birth registration while simultaneously building national digital identity systems.

Across much of the continent, experts argue governments must move beyond political commitments and build what they describe as an “architecture of visibility.”

UNICEF’s latest figures show that only 51 percent of children under five in sub-Saharan Africa have their births registered, while the rate for children under one is even lower, at 46 percent.

An opinion published on the occasion of the 9th Africa CRVS Day, which was observed on August 10, notes that as the continent enters its next CRVS decade (2027–2036), there is the need to put in place systems that ensure every birth, death, and vital event is registered, counted, and connected to services.

The writers also reference the Africa eCRVS Shared Asset (ACSA), first introduced at the ID4Africa 2023 Annual General Meeting in Nairobi and championed by ID4Africa and other partners. The initiative is intended to accelerate the development of digital CRVS systems across Africa by promoting standardization and harmonization and making use of digital public goods, while remaining owned and led by African countries.

In order to make the most of the new Africa CRVS decade, another write-up says countries should learn to scale what works for them, revise regulatory and governance frameworks, ensure inclusion, leverage systems that serve children, and prioritize funding for national registration.

Momentum builds across Africa

In line with the 2026 Africa CRVS Day, UNICEF praised Burundi for engaging in civil registration reforms, but urged the government to align its efforts with objectives of the continent’s CRVS decade which is to achieve systems integration and interoperability.

The UN agency also recognized Nigeria’s commitment to strengthening birth registration which is a prerequisite for obtaining a national identification number (NIN). The commitment follows the enactment of a new national ID legal framework, and the recent launch of a digital birth registration platform.

In Liberia, the call was for more government investment in order to improve the CRVS system, and make it accessible to millions of citizens who still lack a legal identity.

Tanzania, for its part, has also reported progress in child birth registration, as reported by The Guardian. Constitutional and Legal Affairs Minister Juma Homera is quoted as saying that the progress is thanks to sustained investment and awareness campaigns on the importance of the exercise. The figures stand at 65 percent, up from 55 percent in 2020.

Together, the Vital Strategies case studies and Africa’s renewed focus on CRVS point to a broader shift in digital identity policy. Birth registration is no longer being viewed simply as an administrative process ending with a certificate. It is increasingly treated as the foundational infrastructure on which digital identity, interoperable government services and trusted public data depend.

Article Topics

Africa  |  birth registration  |  civil registration  |  CRVS  |  digital public infrastructure  |  Rwanda  |  Thailand  |  UNICEF  |  Vital Strategies