| Overview : UN Legal Identity Agenda (UN LIA) is a joint programme implemented by the UN departments and agencies active in the area of civil registration, vital statistics and identity management, under mandate from the Deputy-Secretary-General. UNDP is co-chair, along with UNICEF and UNDESA, of the UN Legal Identity Agenda Task Force, mandated by the DSG to assist in implementation of the UN LIA. In close cooperation with the World Bank and other identity providers, the goal of ‘Legal Identity for All’ is to assist UN Member States achieve SDG Target 16.9 – “Legal identity for all, including birth registration, by 2030.” Technical assistance will be provided to UN Member States in order to strengthen their capacity to develop comprehensive, holistic, birth-to-death civil registry, vital statistics and identity management systems (including, where relevant, support to national population registers/national identity card schemes).
Mozambique was selected as a United Nations Legal Identity Agenda (UN LIA) pilot country based on the country’s low civil registration indicators, especially death registration (12.1 per cent), birth registration (49 per cent) (National Statistics Institute [INE], 2017) and identification coverage (38 per cent) (NID, 2020). In Mozambique, a rapid assessment was undertaken by United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) on behalf of the United Nations Legal Identity Task Force (UN LIA TF), from 17 to 21 February 2020. The mission conducted the assessment and presented the report aimed at establishing Mozambique’s degree of preparation for the implementation of an integrated civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) and ID system. To this end, the mission carried out desk reviews and individual/institutional consultative meetings. Consultations were held with government institutions, the United Nations agencies of Mozambique, the United Nations Country Team (UNCT), the World Bank Group, development partners and academia. The rapid assessment aimed to provide insight into the Lusophone system of civil registration and identity management, and the challenges with the integration and interoperability of CRVS and ID systems. According to the rapid assessment, Mozambique made great progress towards improving the civil registration system, with the recently launched e-CRVS, which is currently operational in 80 per cent of the civil registration sites. However, in all the key legal identity indicators (birth registration, civil registration and issuance of identity cards), almost half of the target populations have not been reached. The systems in the legal identity ecosystem are fragmented, and there is a lack of interoperability with the civil registration.
In addition, there is also a lack of clarity on the corporate responsibility of all government institutions that are responsible for registering vital events (birth and death notifications); events will continue to go unregistered with no duty bearer to take ownership. Birth and death notifications for health purposes (MoH administrative data) and for civil registration (birth receipts to confirm birth events) are still separate.
To address the challenges on UN LIA front, and support the legal identity the agenda, the project implemented jointly by UNDP and UNICEF will focus on supporting the development of a cross-sectoral UN LIA Implementation Plan, which will reinforce an enabling environment for the Legal Identity Agenda. The project aims to be a solid base to ensure further interventions to support the operationalization as well as implementation of the UN LIA in Mozambique.
The individual assignments will develop for the adoption of the cross-sectoral Mozambican UN LIA Implementation Plan in order to assist UNDP and other UN agencies, funds and programmes in the implementation of the UN Legal Identity Agenda at the country level.
The International Consultant will be working directly with national and/or regional project partners, including, for example, Ministries of the Interior, Health, Local Government, Justice, border management agencies, National Statistics Institutes and specialist CRVS and identity management authorities such as national registration bureaus/national identity authorities. |
