6 February 2015: An article on the World Bank’s Information and Communication for Development (IC4D) blog highlights the importance of target 16.9 in the report of the UN’s Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on ensuring legal identity for all, and proposes an indicator. Proposed SDG target 16.9 calls to: “By 2030 provide legal identity for all, including birth registration.”

The authors note that an inter-agency group is compiling possible indicators for the SDGs, such as the percentage of children under five years old whose births have been registered with civil authority, disaggregated by gender.

However, birth registration is not enough, they argue; it needs to be linked with processes that monitor and register other life events, in order to provide people with “the credentials required for full social and economic participation,” as well as access to public services. Legal identify must be freely available, therefore, to poor and rich people, and throughout the life cycle of the individual.

The article presents a proposal for an indicator in this regard: “the percentage of people, by gender, who possess a credential for legal identity that enables them to participate fully in social and economic life.” The authors add that including this indicator in the SDGs will provide an incentive for countries to review their identification systems, ensure that they are inclusive, and report on progress. [Publication: The criterion problem: Measuring the legal identity target in the post-2015 agenda] [IC4D Blog]