A/HRC/27/22 house visits to locate children under one year of age who are not registered, and then to register them.75 79. In Brunei Darussalam, “Flying Doctor Teams” use helicopters to reach remote communities and, as part of their work, to ensure registration of births of children as well as providing medical services.76 80. In Cambodia, a national mobile registration campaign was started on 1 October 2004. To facilitate the implementation of the campaign, Cambodia amended some provisions of the Sub-decree on Civil Registration in 2004 to remove the requirement of a court judgement for late birth registration. More than 13,000 mobile team members, including civil registration officers, were trained. As a result of the campaign, more than 90 per cent of the population acquired birth registration (some 11.7 million people have had their birth registered during 2006.77 81. In 2013, a new birth registration system was tested in the Mbeya region of the United Republic of Tanzania using the transmission of data to a centralized system via text messaging (SMS). The system is not dependent on any handset or operating system, and requires no Internet connectivity; all that is needed is mobile telephone coverage and a server to receive the data. Before the start of the campaign, approximately 90 per cent of children under the age of 5 in the region were not registered; three months later, only 29 per cent were not.78 VIII. Going forward 82. The universal implementation of the right to birth registration for all is fundamental to the protection of children and the full implementation of their universal human rights. Registration establishes the legal existence of an individual; its absence has lifelong consequences. 83. Birth registration is essential for compiling vital statistics that are needed to develop policies and implement services. The demographic data provided by this act can help to keep track of the population and provide information that can identify areas of improvement. This is particularly important in such areas as child mortality, maternal health and gender equality. 84. One of the most basic institutional responsibilities of a Government is to provide a person with a legal identity; this is central to good governance. Functioning civil registration and vital statistics systems therefore have crucial importance in the post-2015 development agenda. 85. While noting that efforts have been made by States at different levels to ensure birth registration, there is still a long way to go before this right is accessible to all. In developing a permanent and sustainable civil registration and vital statistics system, in accordance with human rights standards, it is fundamental that States: 75 76 77 78 Contribution from Defensa de los Derechos Humanos, Nicaragua. Draft discussion paper distributed to participants at the Regional Workshop of National Registrars on Best Practices in Birth Registration, co-hosted by the ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights (AICHR) and UNHCR in Bangkok on 7 December 2012. Good practices identified by the delegate of Cambodia at the Regional Workshop of National Registrars on Best Practices in Birth Registration (see ibid.). See also Plan International, Count Every Child (see footnote 19), p. 45. UNICEF, A Passport to Protection (see footnote 3), p. 92. 17