Universal legal identity by 2030: Is Bangladesh on right track

When a child is born, birth registration provides their first official recognition by the state.

Similarly, death registration formally records the end of a citizen’s legal identity. But is Bangladesh succeeding in bringing every citizen under a reliable system of birth and death registration? Under Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 16.9, the global community has committed to providing “legal identity for all” by 2030. With that deadline approaching, current trends suggest that Bangladesh still has a long way to go.

Bangladesh lags significantly behind global and regional averages in both birth and death registration. The country’s birth registration rate currently stands at around 50%, while death registration remains at just 47%. This means a substantial proportion of the population remains outside the formal civil registration system.

The gap becomes even more concerning when Bangladesh is compared with global indicators: the global average for birth registration is approximately 77%. Weaknesses in existing policies, legal complexities, and administrative bottlenecks continue to hinder progress.

According to experts, one of the main reasons for the stalled registration rates is the structural weakness of the Birth and Death Registration Act, 2004, coupled with inadequate enforcement at the field level.

More than half of all children in Bangladesh are now born in health facilities or hospitals. However, under the existing legal framework, hospitals are not required to register births directly.

As a result, even after a child’s birth has been officially recorded by a health facility, parents may have to spend days navigating bureaucratic procedures at Union Parishad, Pourashava, or City Corporation offices. Technical problems with the online registration portal, cumbersome procedures for correcting errors, and allegations of harassment over fees further discourage people from completing the process.

Citizens have greater incentives to obtain birth certificates because they are often required for school admission, passports, and other essential services. Public awareness of death registration, however, remains extremely low. Unless a death certificate is needed for property distribution or another legal purpose, families often do not consider registration a priority.

Yet birth and death registration are far more than administrative formalities. They provide the legal foundation for accessing fundamental rights and public services, including healthcare, education, and social protection. Children without birth registration can become legally invisible, leaving them particularly vulnerable to child marriage, child labour, and human trafficking.

Accurate death registration is equally important for public policy. Without reliable data on where, why, and at what age people are dying, the government cannot effectively formulate targeted health policies or allocate resources to address infectious and non-communicable diseases.

Failure to promptly remove deceased individuals from social safety-net beneficiary lists can also create “ghost beneficiaries,” resulting in the misuse of public resources and potentially depriving eligible people of assistance.

If Bangladesh fails to establish universal civil registration by 2030, it will fall short of SDG Target 16.9 and face questions about its progress toward ensuring legal identity for all.

What is the way forward?

Experts argue that achieving universal legal identity by 2030 requires immediate legal and administrative reform. A key step would be to amend the Birth and Death Registration Act, 2004, to assign direct registration responsibilities to public and private hospitals and other health facilities. This would allow births to be registered closer to the point of service and reduce the administrative burden on parents.

At the same time, mass media, local government representatives, and civil society organisations should work together to promote civil registration as a basic right rather than merely a bureaucratic requirement. Particular attention is also needed to address the social and economic barriers that discourage or prevent families from registering deaths, including those of women.

Digital infrastructure must also be upgraded to make registration faster, simpler, and more reliable. Online services should be supported by responsive mechanisms for correcting errors, resolving technical problems, and addressing complaints about unofficial fees or administrative harassment.

Ensuring every citizen has a legal identity is a core responsibility of the state. With strategic planning, institutional coordination, and strong political and administrative commitment, Bangladesh can still make significant progress toward achieving universal registration by 2030. But the window is narrowing. Meeting the target will require not only legal reform, but also effective implementation at the local level.

The question now is whether Bangladesh can take these steps quickly enough—or whether millions of people will remain outside the formal system of legal identity and the protections it provides.