BUILDING STATELESSNESS-SENSITIVE ID SYSTEMS
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ABSTRACT
This publication provides policymakers, practitioners, and development partners with
practical guidance for integrating statelessness considerations into the planning, design,
and implementation of foundational identification systems. As countries accelerate the
development of Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), including digital ID, millions of stateless
people risk being excluded or further marginalized due to legal and administrative barriers
and other challenges. To help address these risks, the publication sets out concrete
measures to make ID systems more inclusive for stateless people—such as incorporating
statelessness assessments during project preparation, adapting enrollment procedures
to overcome legal and documentation barriers, strengthening birth registration systems,
ensuring data protection and due process safeguards, and aligning national frameworks
with international standards to prevent and reduce statelessness. By embedding
statelessness-sensitive approaches into ID system design and implementation,
governments and partners can advance the Sustainable Development Goal of legal identity
for all (SDG 16.9) and help ensure that no one is left behind in the digital transformation.