PSA Strategy Bolsters Birth Registration in Asia and the Pacific: UNESCAP

The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP), the international organization's regional hub promoting cooperation among countries to achieve inclusive and sustainable development, recently cited the Philippines' birth registration strategy implemented by the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) as one of the policies that bolster birth registration in Asia and the Pacific.

In its latest Social Development Policy Paper titled "Inequality of Opportunity in Asia and the Pacific: Birth Registration," the UNESCAP exampled the PSA's Birth Registration Assistance Project (BRAP) as an incentive-based outreach program that "can significantly improve birth registration completion, particularly in underserved areas."

Launched in 2022, the BRAP targets to provide birth registration to an estimated 3.7 million Filipinos without birth certificates, or about 3.4 percent of the total population based on the 2020 Census of Population and Housing (CPH).

Through the project, the PSA has processed the required documents for the birth registration of over 1 million Filipinos in coordination with Local Civil Registry Offices (LCROs) all over the country. As of April 2024, more than 260,000 Filipinos have been issued birth certificates under the BRAP.

The UNESCAP report further highlighted the impact of the BRAP having "effectively increased birth registration completion, especially among marginalized communities, and Muslim Filipinos, among others. The Project helped births in these communities to be registered in the Local Civil Registry Offices which will be followed by enrollment in PhilSys."

"This citation from the UNESCAP affirms our country's commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals where no one gets left behind. Through our birth registration strategy, we continue to ensure that every Filipino has a birth certificate for our kababayans to unlock access to basic services and full participation in society," said PSA Undersecretary Claire Dennis S. Mapa, National Statistician and Civil Registrar General.

According to the report, factors that contributed to the success of the BRAP are the "combined use of incentives and extensive outreach, backed by strong local government support."

"Through the unwavering support from our local government units, the PSA was able to reach unregistered Filipinos, particularly those in remote and marginalized communities. Our goal is to sustain this collaborative endeavor and ensure that birth registration is within reach for every Filipino," Usec. Mapa said.

The PSA's BRAP contributed to the increase in the completeness and has reduced inequality in birth registration in the country, particularly among the marginalized sectors. The UNESCAP report showed that gap in the registration completeness in the Philippines decreased significantly from 10 percentage points in 2017 to 6 percentage points in 2022. This makes the Philippines one of the Asia-Pacific countries with high birth registration completeness and low inequality in birth registration completeness.