UN Legal Identity Agenda Task Force

It is estimated that hundreds of millions of people in the world do not possess proof of legal identity, and thus cannot prove who they are. These figures include approximately 166 million children under 5 whose birth has not been registered, and 237 million children without a birth certificate. Those without legal identity face multifaceted challenges, which can include: i) lack of access to public services and exclusion from large part of the private economy; ii) inability to exercise political rights such as the right to vote; iii) risk of exploitation from criminal enterprises, and; iv) vulnerability, as either refugees or stateless persons, before host country authorities.

The 2030 Agenda recognized the enormous gap in identity coverage and included, as Target 16.9 of the SDGs, a commitment to provide "legal identity for all (including birth registration) by 2030." Inspired by the Secretary-General's determination to tackle the global problem of statelessness (affecting more than 10 million people worldwide), but also noting the wider (and larger) issue of lack of legal identity, the Secretary-General's Executive Committee, in January 2018, mandated the Deputy Secretary-General to convene "UN entities to develop, in collaboration with the World Bank Group, a common approach to the broader issue of registration and legal identity...". To operationalize the decision of the Executive Committee, an inter-agency coordination mechanism — the UN Legal Identity Agenda Task Force (UNLIA TF) — was established from September 2018, where 13 UN agencies, under the chairmanship of UNDP, UNICEF and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, are working together to try to assist Member States achieve SDG target 16.9.

Currently, the UNLIA TF is co-chaired by three directors — Mr. Stefan Schweinfest, DESA, Mr. Cornelius Williams, UNICEF and Ms. Sarah Lister, UNDP.