Digital Birth Registration is a marriage of the efficiency, outreach and ease that technology brings, combined with the legal and policy requirements of registering a child in Pakistan. It’s not about reinventing the wheel – but about improving the existing birth registration processes through the introduction of mobile technology. Telenor, together with UNICEF and the Governments of Punjab and Sindh provinces, believed that the increased adoption of mobile phones in Pakistan could offer a solution to enable a higher number of birth registrations. A simple solution - an app developed by Telenor Pakistan was put in the hands of authorised personnel, including health workers, marriage registrars and at Telenor distribution points. The health workers and marriage registrars moved from house to house as part of their regular responsibilities, while Telenor distribution centres served as point of contact that attracts members of the community for their mobile-related needs. These authorised personnel reported birth-related data along with required documentation directly to the approving authority via the app. A dashboard solution is also available to government authorities to monitor progress.

There are approximately 1.1 billion people across the globe who are “invisible. They were not registered at birth and lack an official form of identification. Of the 366 million children who are unregistered in the world, around 60 million live in Pakistan. The problem of low birth registration rates in Pakistan is due to a combination of social and economic factors. In many areas, registering a birth can be difficult, in some cases nearly impossible – especially for children born at home, in remote locations, or in displacement. The ability to prove one’s identity is crucial to social, political and economic inclusion and enables greater access to basic services such as healthcare and education. It’s also a child’s passport to protection against underage labour, child marriages and trafficking. It also protects children from being treated as adults in the justice system and helps them reconnect with families in times of conflict and disaster. Typically, birth registration is a prerequisite to obtaining a birth certificate, which in Pakistan is needed for issuing national identity cards, passports and in some provinces, school enrolment. On the other hand, government also needs birth data deliver socio-economic services such as planning health care and new schools.

UNICEF, local government

In 2014, a first-of-its-kind pilot was launched with a simple solution. An app developed by Telenor Pakistan was put in the hands of authorised personnel, including health workers, marriage registrars and at Telenor distribution points. The health workers and marriage registrars moved from house to house as part of their regular responsibilities, while Telenor distribution centres served as point of contact that attracts members of the community for their mobile-related needs. These authorised personnel reported birth-related data along with required documentation directly to the approving authority via the app. A dashboard solution is also available to government authorities to monitor progress.

The pilot took place in Sindh and Punjab and was a great success. The pilot has shown an increase in registration rates from under 30 per cent via conventional registration, to above 90 per cent during just 6 months ; nearly 50% of the registered children were girls. The scaleup phase has seen the numbers swell up to 580,000 children by Dec 2018.

A similar project has been initiated in Myanmar during 2018

https://www.telenor.com/sustainability/strategic-direction/sustainability-direction/digital-birth-registration/
http://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Innovations-in-Mobile-Birth-Registration_Insights-from-Tigo-Tanzania-and-Telenor-Pakistan.pdf
https://www.gsma.com/mobilefordevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Roadmap-for-Digital-Birth-Registration.pdf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1myPNVhr1k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xLJ71QmSsc