SITUATION

UNCRC states that “every child in this world has a right to a name & nationality” and one’s national identity is crucial to social, political and economic inclusion. It’s a child’s passport to protection against underage labor, child marriages & trafficking. Despite this 60M Pakistanis lack an official identity and are devoid of basic rights because of inaccessibility and complexity of the registration process.

BRIEF

Telenor aims to empower societies by connecting customers to what matters most, and to further this ambition of digital inclusion under United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG #10: ‘Reduce Inequalities’ it wanted Pakistan to become a safer place for children by naming invisible Pakistanis.

OBJECTIVES

Expand DBR to 36 villages in Pakistan and register 500K unregistered children

Reduce overall application time to 240 mins from 4230 mins (72 hrs ≈ 3 days)

Ensure 100% registrations in all villages where DBR is implemented.

This transformative digital intervention was executed via an easy to use, android based mobile solution. It was put in the hands of authorized personnel, including health workers, marriage registrars who moved from house-to-house collecting key information and documents using a phone camera. Each application reached the authorities via the DBR app and the subject received a certificate on their phone upon approval from the government.

Leveraging Telenor’s mobile financial services platform (Easypaisa), digital payments were made to facilitate the monthly distribution of incentives to over 10,200 community-based gatekeepers. Lady health workers partnered with local clerics to build credibility and a door-to-door drive was used to build word of mouth.

Elaborate tutorials adapted to regional languages were used as training syllabus for end users; health workers, local administration employees and marriage registrars. Project messaging and campaign narratives were centered around the themes of civil rights, human rights and patriotism.

Pakistanis are a deeply proud nation. Patriotism and national fervor run deep in an average Pakistani’s veins. Telenor Pakistan decided to anchor the birth registration initiative upon a nationalistic rhetoric, linking the identity of the invisible Pakistanis with the identity of the country as a whole and evoking a sense of void yet instilling passion for inclusion among the non-registered citizens.

Insight, ‘While I contribute to my economy, I'm devoid of any benefits of ‘being Pakistani’ - So I choose to include’.

Giving this humanitarian crisis a nationalistic spin ensured that the issue became one of national importance and of interest to every Pakistani, especially our rural daily wage earner struggling to make ends meet.

All marginalised, unregistered children and their parents from rural Sindh and Punjab remained our core demographic. These families have low digital literacy but have a low-end smart phone which they primarily use for social connection.

This transformative digital intervention was executed via an easy to use, android based mobile solution in two of Pakistan’s most populous provinces: Sindh & Punjab that contribute the maximum caseload of unregistered births.

The target audience was primarily rural with low literacy rates, lower TV viewership, access to electricity and digital exclusion. A door-to-door drive was used to build word of mouth. This direct activation drive was active all year however household visits peaked during months of high birth rate.

A multi-sector partnership was essential to deliver DBR services and it was effective because each partner’s strategic objectives were aligned. In this case, DBR contributes to the government’s national development strategy, the development partner’s wider goal to strengthen and protect the rights of children while working towards sustainable development goals (SDG), and Telenor’s ambitions to use mobile technology to reduce inequalities and improve living standards in local communities.

Project Performance

• Today, 426 villages in Pakistan are DBR enabled (1083% more than planned).

• 1.2+ million children are no longer invisible; 50% out of those are girls (140% Target vs. Achievement)

• Registration time is now 10 mins (43,100% time reduction)

• Less than 1% of the applications have been rejected by government (9% better acceptance rate than planned)

• Pakistan ranks among top 6 countries by UNESCAP to increase CRVS indicators and to realise the shared vision of "Getting-Every One-in-the-Picture"

• The Government plans to scale DBR to 36 more districts

• One district will soon reach universal birth registration a first in Pakistan’s history

• Due to the subsequent uplift of these provinces Telenor also earned data revenue of PKR 15.8 million in 2020 & avg. revenue per user in DBR enabled districts has increased by 100%

• DBR has also successfully piloted in Myanmar