WASHINGTON, D.C., December 18, 2023 ― The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors today approved a loan to automate the registration of births, provide an identification document for children and adolescents, and improve identity verification and authentication services for Hondurans. The US$40 million investment project will also make civil registry and identification services accessible to all users in Honduras.
The Strengthening Honduras’ National Civil Registry and Identification Ecosystem project will be implemented by the National Registry of Persons (RNP) and will support the timely registration of births in Honduras to boost coverage to 97% through the redesign and automation of civil registry processes. In addition, for the first time, a national identification document will be issued to 1.3 million children and adolescents between the ages of 6 and 17, and the identity verification process will be strengthened through digital technologies.
According to the finance minister Rixi Moncada, “This project is an important step in helping to guarantee one of the most fundamental rights that we enjoy—the right to an identity. The government of President Xiomara Castro values the World Bank’s support as we implement our modernization agenda for the benefit of the Honduran people. The project will facilitate access to services and enable Honduran citizens to exercise other social and economic rights.”
Project implementation will help guarantee the Honduran people’s right to an identity, and will facilitate access to social programs, as well as to education, health, financial, and other services. The project will benefit in particular children living in rural areas, Afro-Hondurans, Indigenous populations, persons with disabilities, and persons living in remote areas vulnerable to climate impacts. Providing identification documents also reduces the risk of children falling victim to trafficking and being trafficked along migration routes because they have no legal document to verify their identity and nationality data.
“The World Bank will continue to support Honduras’ efforts to accelerate the human and economic development of Hondurans by strengthening public institutions for more efficient service delivery. We are also very pleased to provide support to the country through projects such as this one, which will help guarantee the right to an identity, proper registration, and the provision of an identification document for children, all actions that are critical to efforts to reduce exclusion and poverty," noted Kinnon Scott, World Bank Resident Representative in Honduras.
Furthermore, the project provides for the automation of 50 administrative procedures, such as the renewal and replacement of identification documents, corrections to registration entries, and the issuance of single status certificates. Hondurans will be able to carry out these procedures more easily, using various channels such as in-person assistance, mobile and online services, and self-help kiosks set up all across the country.
The project will also strengthen RNP’s capacity to ensure data protection and improve cyber incident detection, response, and prevention capabilities by creating a security operations center. Likewise, it will support resilience to allow the continuity of operations in the event of extreme weather events such as hurricanes and tropical storms.
The three-and-a-half-year investment project complements the World Bank’s efforts to help countries use digital technologies to transform and modernize public sector institutions.
To learn more about the World Bank’s work in Latin America and the Caribbean, please visit this page.
Learn more about the World Bank in Honduras.
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