Seven years between ghost children and Benin’s “C’est moi” card

🤖 This version is an AI-assisted translation. Read the original in French →

Seven years. That is the time elapsed between the report on ghost children, the one that made me want to do what I do, and this video on Benin’s “C’est moi” card.

We can measure the distance travelled between “no solution” and the rollout of the unique identifier, the lever of the paradigm shift that allowed Benin to reform its legal practices.

That path had already proven itself in 2019 in Burkina Faso, back when I visited my friend Adama Sawadogo and his iCivil CRVS solution, built on a unique identifier assigned at birth. What I stand behind here is not one particular solution, but the principle: a unique identifier assigned from birth, as the vehicle for legal identity.

The difference between 2019 and 2026 is that the unique identifier approach is now tested. It has proven itself at national scale, and it is reproducible in other countries provided the political will is there.

Madagascar proved it recently with the PRODIGY programme and the adoption, in April 2026, of the bill on special birth registration, integrated into the mass biometric census programme.

There are fewer than five years left to reach Sustainable Development Goal 16.9: “By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration.” There is no longer any excuse for missing it. The recipe is there, and identity programmes are still under way in many countries, what remains is the time for implementation.

So let us get going! ID30 will find other battles after 2030 if we succeed, no worries.

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