20 ACQUISITION OF CITIZENSHIP CERTIFICATE IN NEPAL ESTIMATION AND PROJECTION In 2011, the total number of estimated Nepali citizens without citizenship certificates was 4,346,046, representing 23.67% of population of Nepal aged 16 and above. In the year 2013, the Government of Nepal operated the Integrated Mobile camps and Citizenship Certificate Distribution Camps, along with the regular process of distribution, thereby distributing citizenship certificates to more than 1,126,430 individuals. This effort led to a decrease in the number of people without citizenship certificates. However, only a year after the mobile camps (2014), the current estimation stands at 4,677,053. The number of citizenship certificates distributed through normal procedures does not keep up with the number of people becoming eligible to obtain citizenship certificate annually. If this trend continues, the number of people who lack citizenship certificates will continue to increase and to create serious problems of exclusion and marginalization for a large section of the Nepalese population. The projection found that in the year 2021, there will be 6,759,224 Nepali citizens who lack citizenship certificates. The increasing number of individuals without citizenship certificate in Nepal is a major concern and this number will continue to grow unless timely and necessary measures are taken by the Government of Nepal to ensure that all the rightful citizens of Nepal can exercise the rights that have been guaranteed to them by the laws of Nepal. Considering the impending adoption of the Sustainable Development Goals, and the specific reference to legal identity in Goal 16.9, it becomes imperative for the state to resolve this problem, in order to achieve that goal. Recommendations • The widening gap of the increasing eligible population and the number of citizenship certificates distributed each year must be addressed by organizing more integrated mobile camps and citizenship distribution camps in the remote and geographically challenging areas of the country. • A strong database must be maintained by the concerned government office on the number of people who have acquired citizenship certificates with extensive demographic details, and additionally the people who have died after acquiring the citizenship certificates must be removed from the records. • The record of the people who have acquired citizenship certificates must be accessible to the common people. • As citizenship certificates provide the basis for legal identity, awareness campaigns should be organized to sensitize people without citizenship certificates regarding the importance and process of acquisition of citizenship certificates. • Capacity building activities must be organized for the concerned personnel in the citizenship certificate distributing offices including the District Administration Office, Municipalities and Village Development Committees (VDC), to smoothen the acquisition process. Courtesy: DNF & Sudhar Nepal, Bhang