Exploring the Interface Between Birth Registration and Citizenship Determination: A Scoping Study in Seven Countries in Southern Africa e. Rationale for Intertwining Birth Registration and Citizenship Determination A key goal of this research is to understand the rationale for the arrangement of intertwining birth registration and citizenship determination. Although documentation on when and why this practice started may be lacking, interesting insights were obtained from the interviewees, which can help improve the understanding of these practices. In some of the countries, it appears that this practice began with the digitalization and integration of the civil registration and ID systems. Historically, in the region, citizenship status has been recorded in national ID systems in order to facilitate citizens’ access to rights and services, such as voting and social services only accessible to citizens and permanent residents. For example, in Botswana and Malawi, the law governing ID systems states there must be two ID registers, one for citizens and one for non-citizens.62, 63 In South Africa and Namibia, only citizens and permanent residents are issued an ID card and entered into the ID system. Before the integration of the civil registration and ID systems and before the issuance of a unique identity number (UIN) at birth, a birth would be registered and, in a separate process, an individual would present themselves to the ID authorities to get a national ID card when they reached a certain age, usually mid-teens. The person would present a copy of their birth certificate or other documentation (or when documentation was lacking, a witness), to enable the ID authorities to verify their identity, determine their citizenship, and enter them in the ID system as applicable. With integrated digital civil registration and ID systems, birth data is now transmitted at the time of birth registration electronically to the ID system and/or population register, at which time a UIN is generated and the newly generated identity number is linked to the birth registration record. Thus, citizenship determination at the time of birth registration seems unavoidable, particularly if the ID system has separate registers for citizens and non-citizens, or generates different UINs for citizens and non-citizens. Figure 1: Example of data exchange (push and pull) model between civil registry and national identity systems at the time of electronic birth registration and creation of an UIN. Step 1: Verification and pre-population of parental details from the ID system during the course of birth registration. Step 2: Sharing of identity details of the child from civil registry to ID system. Step 3: UIN is created in ID system and shared back to civil registry. 22