(Newsletter: CRVS Insight December 2019)

At the request of DSG Ms. Amina Mohammed, a time-bound inter-agency group — the UN Legal Identity Expert Group (UN LIEG) was established in September 2018 under the purview of the UN Sustainable Development Group's Strategic Results Group on SDG Implementation. The LIEG is composed of 17 UN agencies. The substantive focus of the LIEG is an emphasis on building legal identity system founded on civil registration from birth to death, and with a human rights approach.

The LIEG defines legal identity as the "basic characteristics of an individual's identity. e.g. name, sex, place and date of birth conferred through registration and the issuance of a certificate by an authorized civil registration authority following the occurrence of birth".

The LIEG expands saying, "in the absence of birth registration, legal identity may be conferred by a legally-recognized identification authority. This system should be linked to the civil registration system to ensure a holistic approach to legal identity from birth to death".

To read more about legal identity issues please visit the UN Legal Identity Agenda website or www.getinthepicture.org.