In most countries around the world, proof of identity is an essential prerequisite for gaining access to basic services, including enrolling in basic education, health care services, or even claiming rights to inheritance or obtaining legal protection in courts of law. Yet in some countries, as low as 21% of children are registered at birth, often due to poor communications infrastructure between rural villages and national birth registration offices. In Uganda, the Mobile Vital Records System (VRS) is using mobile technology to overcome these barriers to outstanding effect by enabling village registration agents to send birth registration details of newborns via mobile phones through to local hospitals connected to a 3G web-based application.
