For example, Deininger and Mpuga (2005) found that knowledge on how to report bureaucrat misbehavior or unsatisfactory service quality reduces the incidence of corruption and improves quality in health and education services in Uganda.

Finally, proof of identification is another crucial aspect of any bureaucratic interaction between citizens and governments. No matter how good the quality of the services, many people are prevented from accessing them by the lack of legal identity.<sup>2</sup> A study in Indonesia found that among the poorest households, individuals with a birth certificate were much more likely to have completed 12 years of schooling and were less likely to get married before age 18 (Sumner 2015).

Identification has been set as one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). SDG 16.9 recognizes the importance of identification not only as a proof of existence facilitating access to citizen rights, public services, jobs, financial institutions, and to family and property transactions, but also as a source of reliable health statistics<sup>3</sup> (Asian Development Bank 2007; World Bank and World Health Organization 2014; Dahan and Hanmer 2015). Planning and implementing health care and other social programs require an accurate accounting of population dynamics and health needs. The availability of quality data in these areas relies heavily on efficient civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems. For example, the lack of proper data to track maternal deaths is an obstacle to progress in the related Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and subsequent SDG 3.1 (Danel et al. 2011).

The Identity for Development (ID4D) initiative has identified 10 other SDGs including social protection, disaster relief, women’s empowerment, and ending major epidemics for which identification is a key enabler (World Bank 2016). However, only anecdotal evidence is available on how the inefficiency of CRVS systems may negatively affect their coverage across the world.<sup>4</sup> One example is a recent, small survey conducted with staff from the local Registry and health facilities in one district in Ghana. In this survey, 84 percent of respondents said that cost is a challenge to birth and death registration (Musah et al. 2015).

In sum, the registration of births and deaths and the procedures for getting legal identification are key citizen-government bureaucratic interactions, the (in)efficiency of which can impact on poverty and inequality. These (in)efficiencies have not been systematically assessed to date.

# **2.2.2. Existing data sources**

The _Living Life_ study fills a gap in the existing data sources on governance, but it can also be analyzed in a complementary fashion with some existing indicators. Similar to _Doing Business_ , _Living Life_ captures three aspects of government-citizen administrative interactions (cost, time and steps required), which differentiate _Living Life_ from other initiatives that focus on narrower topics such as payment methods (Economist Intelligence Unit 2011). The closest initiative to _Living Life_ is the Inter-American Development Bank’s _Simplifying Lives_

> 2 An estimated 1.5 billion people around the world lack proof of identity (World Bank, 2016).

> 3 SDG 16.9 is: “By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration.”

> 4 For example, the Asian Development Bank (2007) report describes the official procedures and requirements in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Nepal. Sumner <u>(2015) describes recent reforms in Indonesia.</u>

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