News in Brief

Argentina's New ID Cards for Non-Binary People

Under national law, Argentinians have the right to identify themselves as gender neutral. But this has not been reflected in passports and National Documents of Identity (DNI), and residents have only been able to select ‘male’ or ‘female’.

To change this, anyone applying for a new ID document can now select ‘for their gender’.

Argentina is the first Latin American country to adopt this new system, following a decree by President Alberto Fernández. At a ceremony in Buenos Aires, he unveiled the new range of ID cards with the new ‘x’ format and delivered the first three of them with Argentina's interior minister and the minister of women, gender and identity.

‘There are other identities besides that of man and woman, and they must be respected,’ said Mr Fernández. ‘The ideal will be when all of us are just who we are and no one cares about people's gender,’ Argentina joins a number of countries who've already adopted this system for formal identities, including Canada, India and New Zealand.

Africa CRVS Systems Weakened by COVID

Oliver Chinganya, Director of the African Centre for Statistics (ACS) at the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), claims that Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems in 47 countries do not have fully functional processes for recording vital statistics.

Mr Chinganya was speaking during a virtual meeting hosted by ECA for CRVS experts from across Africa to take stock of progress and challenges in the sector, especially within the context of the pandemic.

Zambia’s Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, Dr Liya Mutale, stated that the pandemic has ‘strongly highlighted the critical value of population data and statistics in advancing human development and managing this health crisis’.

She urged leadership across the continent to ensure the resilience of Africa’s CRVS systems, ‘especially through innovative and decentralised approaches that will remain effective during and post COVID’.

The discussions were premised on the commemoration of the 4th Africa CRVS Day (10 August) under the theme ‘Leadership for an Essential Service: Building resilient Civil Registration and Vital Statistics systems in Africa post COVID-19 through innovative, integrated, and decentralised services.’

‘The aim of this day is to increase public awareness on the importance of the timely registration of vital events,’ said Mr Chinganya.

Dr Azza Badr, a WHO Technical Officer, noted that her organisation was working to strengthen coordination between health sectors, and national and international CRVS stakeholders, and also build capacity to analyse and use mortality and cause-of-death data for policy purposes.

Participants were also introduced to UNICEF’s NoName Campaign, which advocates for universal birth registration in Africa. The presentation was made by Faith Nsanshya, who highlighted the need to address issues of cost, culture, and other system bottlenecks and barriers to birth registration.

Australia Seeks App Help for COVID Certificates

In a recent press briefing Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he expects the country's vaccine certificates to come into the wallet app in August.

He also said that later in the year, the COVID digital vaccine certificates will be recognised internationally, enabling travel to and from the country.

Australian citizens who have completed their Pfizer or AstraZeneca jabs will automatically get their digital certificates via their accounts in the Express Plus Medicare app. The certificate can also be accessed in their MyGov account's immunisation history once they can link it to Medicare. Another way to get their certificates is by requesting an immunisation history statement from their vaccine provider or through the Australian Immunisation Register.

The federal government is currently seeking a developer for its smartphone app project that can store COVID vaccine certificates and test results.

A tender was recently issued by the Australian Digital Health Agency for a digital health app that must be connected to the government's My Health Record system.

A critical requirement of the mobile app is its ability to tap into external systems, facilitating the recognition of overseas-issued vaccination certificates.

The app is targeted to be launched on both iOS and Android devices by December.

‘We already have vaccine certificates. They already exist. And, those vaccine certificates, this month, we expect to be in a form that can be dropped into Apple Wallets, things of that nature. And, later in the year, about October we estimate, we'll have a vaccination certificate that will be able to be used, internationally recognised, to facilitate when people are moving out of the country and into the country, being able to recognise others’ certificates,’ the Prime Minister said.

Kenya Improves Land Registration

The Turkana County administration is set to register community land, as part of Kenya’s National Land Management System, after receiving survey and mapping equipment from the Food and Agriculture Organisation through funding by the European Union.

The equipment received includes a Global Positioning System (GPS), Geographical Information System (GIS) and plotter machines.

Chief Administrative Secretary (CAS) in the Ministry of Lands and Physical Planning, Alex Muiru, acknowledged the significant steps made by the ministry towards decentralisation of land administration services in the country, adding that the ministry is committed to facilitating land registration services through digitisation, national titling, institutional and land reforms.

‘We initiated the process of digitisation in 2018 and the President launched the online land transactions in Nairobi Land Registration Unit on 27 April this year. The National Land Management System is important in facilitating online land services for efficient and good governance,’ Muiru said at the equipment handover ceremony.

He said that the Community Land Act 2016 will guide the process because it is the relevant legislation applying to Turkana, where pastoralism is practised. Pastoralism is form of animal husbandry which sees livestock grazing over large areas of sparsely vegetated land.

Muiru assured individuals owning plots they will get titles once the land registration is complete adding that a land registrar would be deployed to Turkana to enhance service delivery.

The acting European Union Ambassador to Kenya, Katrin Hagemann, said the equipment handover was a milestone that would benefit land users and administrators through access to land related information, increasing investment, security of land tenure, facilitate access to loans with land as collateral, increase revenue through taxes and create job opportunities.

She underscored the significance of the project in resolving land related conflicts to promote investment and reduce corruption with regard to land ownership. She said conflict is minimised when there is clarity and identity of who owns the land and clearly distinguished boundaries.