VIDEO | Somalia, the digital registry arrives: the pilot project of the Italian Geographical Society

ROME – According to Unicef estimates, there are almost 170 million children under the age of five who do not have a birth certificate in the world, and over half of these live in Africa. Yet being born means existing, but if no one certifies the existence of the child, that person loses their legal identity and therefore all other rights. […]

ROME – In the world there are almost170 million children under the age of five who do not have a birth certificate, according to Unicef estimates, and over half of these live in Africa. Yet “being born means existing, but if no one certifies the existence of the child, that person loses their legal identity and therefore all other rights. And a country without rights is condemned to underdevelopment , conflicts and inequalities, as we often see in Africa”. Word ofDr. Kadigia Ali Mohamud, of the Research and Development Unit (USR) of the Italian Geographical Society (SGI). In an interview with the Dire agency, the Italian expert, originally from Somalia, illustrates the results of the first phase of a pilot project which involved the city of Garowe, capital of the Somali state of Puntland, and presented this morning at the Company’s headquarters in ‘Palazzo Mattei’ in Villa Celimontana, in Rome. A dream that the researcher has been cultivating “since 1990 – she says – when I left my country, in the midst of civil war, but which I have been working on since 2014 amidst a thousand obstacles, and shared with the Urs”.

Promoted by the Italian Geographical Society, the project – which was born at the request of the Puntland authorities – is financed by the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation (Aics) and enjoys the support of the Puntland government and the Italian Embassy. The objective is to create a civil registration system for the citizens of Somalia, among the most fragile countries in the world, which still pays the cost of thirty years of civil war which, among other things, has meant that in the last three decades no censuses or population registers have been carried out /strong>, or civil registration programs (births, deaths, marriages and divorces), neither at the federal nor at the regional or municipal level.

CENSUS AND REGISTRY, DISCOUNTED IN MANY COUNTRIES, THEY ARE A CULTURAL REVOLUTION FOR OTHERS

In sub-Saharan Africa increasingly crossed by conflicts and migratory movements with millions of people involved, words like “registry office”, “census”, “identity document” or “tax code” do not always make sense. “In Europe – highlights the scholar – for centuries the Church has been responsible for registering births and deaths, celebrating baptisms, weddings and funerals. The procedure then passed to public administrations and people today they take it for granted.” But in many countries around the world it is not at all part of the cultural and/or administrative fabric. But, warns Dr. Mohamud, “if politicians do not know the population, with its specific needs, they cannot even provide school, health, work and welfare, or provide for the sanitation or safety management of the territories, while people may not be able to travel or have access to financial or social security services”.

IT STARTS FROM THE CREATION OF THE ADDRESS, THEN YOU MOVE TO THE CERTIFICATE OF IDENTITY

But to arrive at the legal identity, we must start from the creation of the family’s address: “Our 140 collaborators in Puntland – continues the expert – went street by street a, following the satellite images of Garowe, prepared by the Urs team in Rome. They then connected each family’s home to a geolocation system, to produce a string with special software. of a specific code for each nucleus, which indicates: state, district, city, neighbourhood, subdistrict and registration area (which includes no more than 100 buildings) to which it belongs”.

Subsequently the team, with the help of local officials, proceeded to post the house numbers on the doors of the houses. The general study of the population and housing of the entire city of Garowe has closed the first phase of the project, which will be followed by the creation of a civil register by 2025. The coordinator continues: “In the next few months we will organize appointments for the families of a neighborhood in front of the municipal official, who will have to register all the members of a family based on the residential address assigned to them. This will allow the creation of the identity actual legal registration and, therefore, the production of legal registration certificates“.

THIRD STAGE, THE REGISTER: DYNAMIC AND SUSTAINABLE OVER TIME

The third and final phase of the project involves “the management of a dynamic and sustainable register, in which births, marriages and deaths will be inserted over time” as well as “biometric information”, which over time, assures Dr. Mohamud, “it will contribute decisively to the stabilization of the country”. The project also includes the training of administrative staff and the use of dedicated management software. This digital registry model could be replicated in the rest of Somalia and then in other countries: “In Africa – says Dr. Mohamud – there is a tendency to register people only when elections are called, or when trafficking in refugees: they are tiring, expensive and unfortunately useless procedures in the long term. How do you enter a name in a register – asks the expert – if you have no other information either about the person in question or about his family. origin nor even the place where it lives? And how do you update that register if it was not designed to be dynamic?”. Yet, he concludes, the life of these countries depends on legal identity: “Without documents it is easy to steal houses, land or other assets, and this fuels conflicts and inequalities. Rights begin when the person exists” .

BARAK OBAMA WAS ABLE TO RUN THANKS TO BIRTH CERTIFICATE

“Is the birth certificate important? Without it, Barack Obama would not have been able to run for the White House, because he managed to deny those who denied that he was not born in the United States. Only the recovery of the certificate has resolved all doubts “. Professor Francesco Maimone, of the Research and Development unit of the Italian Geographical Society, uses this example to highlight the value of the project. Then he added: “In Africa the problem is serious.In Somalia 3% of the population is registered, in Ethiopia – a more solid country – it reaches 7% in 2011. Nothing“. He explains further: “It’s not just about building a registry, but rather finding a way to organize and integrate systems together at a decidedly reduced cost, because it has very high costs.” The professor cites some examples: “In the United States the last census of 2020 cost 13 billion dollars, in Italy, that of 2011, a good 580 million euros”. But now “in advanced countries we are moving towards abandoning this practice, because the administrations integrate the data from the registry offices with those from the civil status registers. Various European countries, including Italy, will no longer carry out censuses in the future”. This is why we need to build registers that are dynamic and sustainable over time, and above all economic for developing countries.

STABILIZE THE COUNTRY, ESPECIALLY IN THE TERRITORIES LIBERATED FROM THE SHABAAB

“Civil registration is a necessary step to prevent people from becoming social ghosts, as well as part of the process of rebuilding the Somali state” claims Pier Mario Daccò, Italian ambassador to Somalia, who in the video -connection from Mogadishu spoke at the conference. In the country, he continues, “there is a lot of discussion about how to deal with the electoral deadlines in the coming years, so the construction of a registry is essential to arrive at the voters’ register, as complete as possible, to choose the future representatives especially in the territories just liberated from the Shabaab“, the armed rebel group that is trying to take over the government of the country. In those areas, confirms the diplomat, “the AICS headquarters in Somalia is financing a project focused on social reorganization, to bring basic services – clinics, schools, police stations – to certify the return of the State >. I would therefore like the digital registry project to be included among those services”, he concludes.