Project profile — Canadian Fund for Civil Registration in Latin America and the Caribbean

• America, regional (100.00%)

• Health, General: Health policy and administrative management (12110) (25.00%)
• Population Policies/Programmes And Reproductive Health: Population policy and administrative management (13010) (30.00%)
• Public sector policy and administrative management:
Public sector policy and administrative management (15110) (15.00%)
Human rights (15160) (5.00%)
• Multi-sector aid for basic social services:
Multi-sector aid for basic social services (16050) (10.00%)
Statistical capacity building (16062) (15.00%)

• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (significant objective)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Children's issues (principal objective)
• Youth Issues (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (significant objective)
• Disability (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (not targeted)

The purpose of this project is to better protect children and other vulnerable persons in Latin America and the Caribbean by supporting the birth registration of two million children under the age of five, thereby facilitating people’s access to a legal identity. The project reinforces national registrars so they can register 95% of newborns each year and improve service delivery to vulnerable unregistered children in target countries. A birth certificate allows children to access health services and education, giving them the opportunity to achieve their full potential as active and productive citizens. Children are the primary beneficiaries of the project, but some activities are also aimed at vulnerable unregistered adults. Project activities include the following: (1) improving governments’ capacity to design and apply policies to facilitate inclusive civil registration, by developing national work plans, training registrars and providing technical assistance to the selected national governments; (2) improving registrars’ capacity to register unregistered children in a timely and secure manner and to educate unregistered persons about their civil registration rights and responsibilities, by implementing tools to measure the level of service delivery to children, training officials in delivering services to everyone, and modernizing technological equipment to better protect personal information; (3) building governments’ capacity to use international standards in managing civil registries and to recognize identity documents from other countries, by sharing best practices, training employees and translating key documents for dissemination. The project is in keeping with Canada’s priorities for strengthening child protection and supporting maternal, newborn and child health.

The expected outcomes for this project include: (1) increased implementation of child friendly, gender sensitive and inclusive civil registry and legal identity policy frameworks by government institutions in targeted countries; (2) improved delivery of legal identity and civil registration services for vulnerable populations, particularly children, in targeted areas; and (3) increased use of international standards in legal identity and civil registration among Inter-American Development Bank borrowing member countries.

Results achieved as of the end of the project (December 2017) include: (1) In Mexico, the Fund supported the installation of automatic tellers and kiosks that facilitate access to civil registration services. This helped to decrease under-registration, especially in hard-to-reach areas of Mexico with 40,486 certified copies issued through kiosks located in suburban municipalities and 20,139 certified copies issued through kiosks specifically set up with this project’s support. This resulted n 25,698 births timely registered; (2) In Peru, bilingual civil registration has been possible in 84 population centers in the Provinces of Cajamarca, Cajabamba, Chota, Cutervo, Jaén, and San Ignacio. These communities can register births, marriages, and deaths in Spanish and prominent native languages, such as Awajún, Quechua, and Inkawasi Cañaris. This resulted in 378 documenting procedures completed by the itinerant registering campaign in districts of high poverty; 72 Civil Registry Offices (Oficinas de Registro del Estado Civil – OREC) in districts of high poverty benefitted from institutional strengthening programs and 721 registry books incorporated into a national database. A total of 85,007 people registered with 36,370 registered in 2017. It is worth noting that 1 sub-project in Peru surpassed expected results. The target was to complete documenting procedures for 6,000 with 6,378 people who actually obtained registration and legal identification in vulnerable areas of Cajamarca.

• Proactive disclosure