ID2020 Summit: Harnessing Digital Identity for the Global Community on May 20, 2016.(Photo: www.JeffreyHolmes.com) all, including birth registration, by 2030”, in collaboration with the United Nations Office for Partnerships, hosted the “ID2020 Summit – Harnessing Digital Identity for the Global Community” at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.
Around one-fifth of the world’s population (1.8 billion people) is without legal identity, which deprives them of access to healthcare, schools, shelter, justice, and other government services. Commonly affected groups include refugees displaced by war, territorial disputes, victims of famine, societal outcasts, global disorder, political instability, competition for resources and climate change.
In the context of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, adopted by world leaders in 2015, with the overarching goal to leave no one behind, the need to enable people who suffer legal, political, social and economic exclusion to obtain official identity is clear. In response to this global need, the ID2020 Summit convened leaders and representatives from the private sector, governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations, policy analysts and thought leaders to build cross-sectoral partnerships that contribute to provide all invisible and vulnerable people with legal identity by 2030, to make them visible and restore them into society