CITIZENSHIP AND STATELESSNESS IN THE HORN OF AFRICA \Y assistance to re-establish a child’s identity where it has been illegally deprived.%'9 This provision implies within it the obligation for states to establish the nationality of a child where this is unknown — and not, for example, simply to state that the child is not a national of the country of birth. The African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child also includes the right to birth registration “immediately after birth” within the same article providing for the right to a nationality. The General Comment adopted by the Committee of Experts sets out the obligations of states in detail.°*° The obligations for the issue of identity documents, including birth registration, are specifically stated to apply equally to refugees, stateless persons, and internally displaced persons, under both international and African law.°?" The Sustainable Development Goals, endorsed by the UN General Assembly in 2015, included within Goal 16 the commitment in Target 16.9 to “provide legal identity for all, including birth registration” by 2030. While the meaning of “legal identity” has been somewhat unclear, the UN has adopted a definition that links proof of legal identity to a civil registration system. A series of conferences of African Ministers responsible for civil registration has adopted ministerial declarations confirming the commitment of African states to fulfilling these obligations and achieving universal birth registration.°2° Sub-regional standards Intergovernmental Authority on Development The Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) is a regional organisation with headquarters in Djibouti (originally created in 1986 as the Intergovernmental Authority on Drought and Development). Its eight members include Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Somalia, as well as Sudan, South Sudan, Kenya and Uganda. IGAD has undertaken no specific initiatives in relation to statelessness. However, the Nairobi Declaration comprehensive regional on Somali approach Refugees adopted to deliver durable in 2017 did commit solutions for Somali states refugees” to pursuit of “a to include both 313 Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 8. 320 African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, ‘General Comment on Article 6’. 321 in addition to the general obligations in human rights law, see UN Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951, arts. 25 and 27; Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, 1954, arts. 25 and 27; Convention Governing the Specific Aspects of Refugee Problems in Africa, 1969, art. 6; Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa, 2009, art. 13; UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement, 1998, principle 20. 322 “egal identity is defined 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. 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. Legal identity is retired by the issuance of a death certificate by the civil registration authority upon registration of death.” United Nations Strategy for Legal Identity for All: Concept note developed by the United Nations Legal Identity Expert Group, June 2019; Introduction of the United Nations Legal Identity Agenda: A holistic approach to civil registration, vital statistics and identity management: Report of the Secretary-General (E/CN.3/2020/15). United Nations Statistical Commission, 18 December 2019. 323 Held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, 2010; Durban, South Africa, 2012; Yamoussoukro, Céte d'Ivoire, 2015; Nouakchott, Mauritania, 2017; Lusaka, Zambia, 2019: for details of the Africa Programme on Accelerated Improvement of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (APAI-CRVS), see website of the UN Economic Commission for Africa at https://www.uneca.org/data-and-statistics. UNHCR — December 2021 71