Above: Interconnectedness: From Global/Regional Commitments to National/Local Realities — A Focus on Senegal webinar speakers

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Sixteen-year-old Ibrahima Kane Diallo, a resident of Diamaguène, Senegal, had dreams for his future but these dreams were shattered. Although he had completed his six years in primary school, he couldn’t enrol in secondary school because he didn’t have a birth certificate. “What’s more, I was over the age limit for taking the exam. I was stuck, with no solution. It broke me,” he said. Ibrahima dropped out of school and now works delivering bread in his neighbourhood.

Aicha Ba, a year 12 student from the Sam Sam neighbourhood of Dakar, talked about the sixteen brilliant classmates in her school who could have become doctors, engineers, or teachers but were forbidden to take the exams because they did not have birth certificates.

” How can we let children study for years and then prevent them from continuing or taking their exams because they don’t have the right papers? A child without papers has their future stolen. It’s not fair.”

Aicha Ba

Ibrahima and Aicha, young people in the Tapori network, together with ATD Fourth World Activist Oumou Dione, were speakers on 10 June 2025 in the first of three webinars aimed at accelerating birth registration for people living in poverty. Organised in partnership with UNICEF, Child Identity Protection, and African Child Policy Forum as a follow up to the “I was born. I exist. Add me to the list” roundtable in Dakar in 2024, the webinars are a continuation of ATD’s work on legal identity. The three-part series aims to better identify the nexus between the global, regional, and national levels in accelerating birth registration for marginalised populations, analysing how international commitments and regional frameworks translate (or fail to translate) into effective national policies and implementation strategies to address the issue.

Birth registration is a gateway right: without it, children are often denied access to other critical rights. The absence of a legal identity creates a domino effect, impeding a child’s access to education, health care, and social protection services. If children are not registered at birth, they are more vulnerable to abuse, exploitation, child labour, early marriage, and statelessness. Without proof of identity, they are more likely to be excluded from school enrolment, vaccination campaigns, and essential legal protections. Global commitments that have been made to leave no one behind include targets on achieving universal birth registration and legal identity, yet translating these promises into meaningful change for the most excluded children remains a persistent challenge.

A Focus on Senegal

The webinar, “Interconnectedness: From Global/Regional Commitments to National/Local Realities — A Focus on Senegal,” was moderated by Bhaskar Mishra, UNICEF. He invited speakers to reflect on the cost of action versus that of inaction and to make an honest assessment of the gap between global/regional commitments and national implementation. For families living in poverty, translating global commitments into meaningful change in their daily lives remains a challenge. The webinar identified pathways for more effective and practical interventions to increase birth registration in Senegal, assessing strategies that work and ones that don’t, as well as ways they can be improved to reach the people furthest behind.

Suzanne Aho, a member of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, explained the legal and policy framework for Senegal to meet its obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child to ensure birth registration of every child. Aliou Ousmane Sall, Director General of the National Civil Status Agency (ANEC), spoke about the measures taken by the government of Senegal to improve access to birth registration, focusing on steps taken for the most marginalised populations. Edouard Sène, the mayor of Ndondol, spoke about best practices used in his municipality to ensure timely birth registration for all, highlighting some transformative strategies that can be undertaken at the local level. Lastly, Yehualashet Mekonen, director of the African Child Observatory at the African Child Policy Forum, spoke about how the issue is addressed in other countries in Africa and best practices that Senegal could borrow.

The speakers reflected on the many challenges and on the powerful testimony by Oumou Dione, who spoke of the enormous difficulties that people in her community face just to obtain a simple birth certificate. This is what she said:

• “This document, which seems obvious to some, is a real obstacle course for people living in extreme poverty. Civil registration is supposed to be a fundamental right. Yet in reality, we are treated as if we were unwanted, as if our existence did not matter. At the town hall, they often treat us coldly and humiliate us. Some officials ignore you, others speak to you with contempt. And while you wait patiently, other people who are better dressed or better connected enter without queuing, are received quickly, and get everything they want.
• “We cannot afford to spend a whole day waiting. When you live in poverty, every minute counts because you have to go out and find food for your family. Going to the town hall sometimes means choosing between doing paperwork or buying rice for the evening meal.
• “And yet we know how important civil status documents are. Without them, we have no access to education, healthcare, work, or even a recognised identity. Without a birth certificate, we do not legally exist. That is why we fight on, despite the humiliation and exhaustion.”

Ms. Dione and the Tapori young people asked for special measures to be put in place to support vulnerable families, so that finally every child can start their life with a name and legal recognition. In his question to Dr. Sall from the government agency, Ibrahima asked for a review of age limits that prevent some people like him from continuing school. “It’s never too late to learn,” he said, “Let’s give everyone a chance.”

If you missed the first webinar, the recording is here.

The second webinar, “Stepping Up Action at the Regional Level — a Focus on Africa“, will be held on 18 September 2025 from 13h00-14h30 CEST. Register here.

The third webinar, “Building Bridges: Stepping up action on other regions and at the international level”, is scheduled for November.