Identity for Social and Financial Inclusion

Introduction

Identity is fundamental to human beings. Our identity is who we are: a blend of personal history, native and learnt beliefs and behaviours, and a package of cultural, family, national, team, gender or other identities. However, we understand it identity always matters. Our identity is essential as it represents us, our degree in economic, political and other societal systems – and our degree of choice and control to be embodied in these systems. An identity is 'A collection of individual attributes that describe an entity and determine the transactions that entity can participate in' (World Bank).

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals provide an ambitious target that all people will be able to obtain a “legal identity” by 2030 (SDG 16.9). The inclusion of target 16.9 implies that the provision of legal documentation is being recognized and addressed as a global development issue. Also, in order to measure progress towards the achievement of the SDGs, comprehensive and accurate monitoring of how citizens are being accounted for across the 17 targets is critical. Several leading global institutions have highlighted that identification underpins many of the SDGs and is a prerequisite for success. Additionally, there is a risk that “what is not counted, doesn’t count” and the ability to measure the impact and outcomes of the SDGs overall could be compromised. Sustainable Development Goal Target 16.9 (“legal identity for all, including birth registration, by 2030”) is key to advance the 2030 Agenda commitment to leave no one behind, and equally relevant is SDG 17.19 — support to statistical capacity-building in developing countries, monitored by the indicator “proportion of countries that have achieved 100 per cent birth registration and 80 per cent death registration”.

The concept of identity isn't new; we have had evolving credentials to prove who we are, from beads and wax seals to passports, identity cards, and birth certificates. Throughout history, we see again and again hard-fought battles and revolutions where individuals demand recognition and rights. From “no taxation without representation” to the ending of apartheid, representation of individuals in society has been the bedrock for reimagining and renegotiating the rights, freedoms and responsibilities of individuals and their organizations. The primitive definitions of the citizen in Ancient Greece, the Magna Carta and the US Constitution were all acts that defined the social contracts between people and institutions.

For human beings, the proof of identity is an essential prerequisite for accessing critical services, participating in and contributing to the modern economic, social and political systems. For devices, digital identity is crucial for performing transactions.

The issues linked with identity proofing, i.e., fraud, stolen credentials, and social exclusion, have challenged the world throughout history. But, as the realms in which we coincide and transact have grown, first geographically and into the digital economy, the ways humans, devices and other entities interact are evolving.

Thus, how we manage our identity will have to change accordingly. The most comprehensive dataset on official identity is currently The World Bank's Identity for Development database. The World Bank has estimated that about 1.1 billion people lack official identity and are not part of a national identity system. (Desai et al., 2018)

The World Bank estimate suggests that roughly 1 in 6 humans lack official identification. But it is possible that many more people immigrants, indigenous, female, poor, rural, refugee or marginalized populations— could be described as “under-identified.” These are people enrolled in a government identity system at some point in their lives but whose identity credentials may not empower them to exercise their rights, receive government services, or participate fully in the modern economy.