South Sudan’s government is developing plans to digitize its civil registration system and integrate it with the national ID system, aiming to streamline the issuance of legal identity documents.
The reform will enable real-time birth registration, allowing hospitals and health facilities to notify civil registry authorities as soon as a child is born, rather than requiring separate declaration processes.
Maj. Gen. Elia Costa, Director General of the Civil Registry, Nationality, Passport and Immigration, disclosed the plans after attending a meeting of civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) experts in Zimbabwe. He said the reform would align South Sudan with international civil registration standards and significantly boost birth registration, currently estimated at just 10 percent.
The initiative reflects long-standing advocacy from UNICEF and other UN agencies for countries to link civil registration and national ID systems, a strategy central to achieving Sustainable Development Goal target 16.9 on legal identity for all.
Cabo Verde is cited as a country that achieved near-universal birth registration within five years using a similar approach. South Sudan currently has one of the lowest national ID coverage rates globally, according to an April diagnostic report by the World Bank’s Identification for Development (ID4D) initiative, which called for legislative reforms to make the ID system more inclusive.
The digitization effort will involve a multisectoral collaboration between the Ministries of Justice, Interior, and Health — an approach consistent with the ID4D report’s recommendations.
