“Legal identity for all” and childhood statelessness

In September 2015, the UN General Assembly adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), an ambitious set of objectives for international development to replace and expand upon the fifteen-year-old Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted in 2000. Goal 16 is one of the broadest: “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels”. Each Goal has a set of more detailed targets: Target 16.9 requires that states should, by 2030, “provide legal identity for all, including birth registration”.