A/HRC/RES/43/5 Welcoming the commitment of States to leave no one behind, and recalling that the provision of legal identity for all, including birth registration, is included as the standalone target 16.9 in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development under Sustainable Development Goal 16, and taking note with interest of the report entitled “Birth Registration for Every Child by 2030: Are we on track?”, published by the United Nations Children’s Fund in 2019, Recognizing that the full implementation of this target will have both a direct and an indirect impact on the achievement of other targets and goals, inter alia social protection, protection in emergencies, access to financial and economic resources, the elimination of all forms of discrimination and violence against women and children everywhere, and access to quality education, Welcoming the continuing efforts of the Committee on the Rights of the Child and other treaty-based bodies towards universal birth registration, such as through recommendations widely addressed to States in this regard, Recognizing the importance of birth registration, including late birth registration and the provision of documents of proof of birth, as a means of providing an official record of the existence of a person and the recognition of that individual as a person before the law, and as a critical means of preventing statelessness, Expressing concern that unregistered individuals may have limited or no access to services and the enjoyment of all the rights to which they are entitled, including the rights to a name and to acquire a nationality, and rights relating to health, education, property and inheritance, social welfare, work and political participation, and taking into consideration that registering a person’s birth is a vital step towards respect for and the protection and fulfilment of all their human rights, and that persons without birth registration are more vulnerable to poverty, marginalization, exclusion, discrimination, violence, statelessness, abduction, sale, exploitation and abuse, including when they take the form of child labour, human trafficking, child, early and forced marriage, other harmful practices, illegal adoption and child recruitment, Bearing in mind that certain groups, such as nomadic and border populations, minorities, refugees, internally displaced persons, migrants, abandoned, orphaned, unaccompanied or separated children, indigenous peoples and persons with disabilities are at particular risk of statelessness because their situation makes it difficult for them to register births or to obtain related documents, thereby hindering the full realization of their human rights, Recognizing that armed conflict and emergencies can be a cause and a consequence of statelessness, rendering women and girls particularly vulnerable to various forms of abuse in both the private and public domains, and that statelessness can arise when women’s experience of conflict intersects with discrimination with regard to nationality rights, such as laws that require women to change nationality upon marriage or its dissolution or that deny them the ability to pass on their nationality, Being fully aware of the fact that non-registration of children at birth may represent a major impediment to the enjoyment of civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights, Recognizing that free birth registration and free or low-fee late birth registration are part of a comprehensive civil registration system that facilitates the development of vital statistics and the effective planning and implementation of programmes and policies intended to promote better governance and to achieve internationally agreed development goals, Recognizing also that non-governmental organizations, professional associations, the media, the private sector and other members of civil society, including those involved in public-private partnerships, can also contribute to the improvement and promotion of community awareness of birth registration in a manner that reflects national priorities and strategies, 1. Expresses deep concern at the fact that, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund, nearly 237 million children still do not have a birth certificate despite ongoing efforts to increase the global rate of birth registration; 2