Civil Registration as the Foundation for Digital Public Infrastructure and Digital Legal Identity Systems in Africa
Cornelius WILLIAMS
Child Identity Protection, Senior Child Protection and CRVS Expert (moderator)
Cornelius Williams is a highly respected expert with over 35 years of experience in global child protection programming and child rights advocacy. He has worked with international organisations like UNICEF and Save the Children to improve protection for children from exploitation, violence, and abuse.
As the former Global Director for Child Protection at UNICEF, Cornelius led several humanitarian and developmental programmes in various child protection areas. He has served on multiple Advisory Boards, including ID4Africa, CPC Learning Network, and Changing the Way We Care. Cornelius has served on several UN committees, such as the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on Female Genital Mutilation and the Global Programme to End Child Marriage. He was also part of the UN Legal Identity Taskforce, the Global Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Group and the Core Group of Africa Programme on Accelerated Improvement of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics. His work continues to shape global strategies to safeguard children’s right to legal identity and protection from exploitation, violence, and abuse. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees for the Consortium for Street Children and the Policy Board of WeProtect Global Alliance to End Child Sexual Exploitation Online. He also collaborates with Child Identity Protection as an expert on children’s legal identity. He is a national of Sierra Leone and holds a Master of Arts in International Child Welfare from the University of East Anglia in the UK.
Gilles FAGNINOU
Regional Director, UNICEF West and Central Africa
Biography will be added soon.
Joseph ILBOUDO
UNECA, Officer in charge of the African Centre for Statistics
Biography will be added soon.
Samuel MILLS
Senior Health Specialist and Global CRVS lead, World Bank
Biography will be added soon.
Aliou Ousmane SALL
Director General of the National Civil Status Agency (ANEC), Ministry of Territorial Communities, Development and Regional Planning (Senegal)
Biography will be added soon.
William MUHWAVA
Chief, Demographic and Social Statistics African Centre for Statistics, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa
William Muhwava is the Chief of Demographic and Social Statistics Section at the African Centre for Statistics of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. He holds a Doctorate in Medical Demography from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of London. He is a Demographer and has worked with national statistical offices, universities and international organizations. In his current capacity, he leads the section that has the core functions of supporting countries in the collection, production, analyses and use of demographic and social data collected through censuses, civil registration, population registers and household surveys. He is coordinating the Africa Programme for Accelerated Improvement for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (APAI-CRVS) which has the objective to provide management and programmatic guidance to the African agenda of reforming and improving CRVS systems. The regional programme provides guidance on the institutional and operational linkages, workflows and results management mechanisms in a more comprehensive and holistic manner, encompassing the inter-disciplinary and inter-sectoral interfaces of CRVS systems. He also coordinates the implementation of United Nations Legal Identity Agenda, aimed at establishing a mechanism for conferring legal identity to all in a continuous, universal and inclusive manner, from birth to death. Currently, the work has been extended to include the United Nations Legal Identity Agenda and National Population Registers. He coordinates the Africa Census Program.
