Universal full coverage of birth registration by 2030 is one of the sustainable development targets which itself is of great significance for the accomplishment of many development goals such as poverty eradication, inclusion, as well as improvement of several health factors. Despite the importance of this topic, not much academic attention has been paid to study the problem of birth under-registration from the perspective of development studies. This research studies the issue of birth under-registration through a case study of Iran. The four main questions of this research are the quantitative significance of the problem, the main causes of birth under-registration, the most affected social groups, and the main problematic domain of action, in the context of Iran. By utilizing an abductive content analysis method, this research aims to understand the problem, rather than proposing policy recommendations. This desk study uses secondary sources and almost all of the sources are of qualitative nature. It is not based on any pre-defined theory and therefore does not aim to generalize nor theorize the findings. It, however, is based on available theories for developing the analytical framework. The adopted analytical framework is Bottleneck analysis which is a method designed by UNICEF specifically for the purpose of birth registration programming and policy evaluation. Birth under-registration in Iran - compared to other countries in the region - turned out to be very low. The findings provide information on many good practices regarding birth registration programming and also about several areas in need of improvement in Iran. By applying the analytical framework to the findings, identified disincentives have been categorized in three domains of supply, demand, and enabling environment, and the significance of disincentives in each domain has been assessed. Based on the analysis, it can be concluded that almost all of the main causes of birth registration are of legal nature, especially patriarchal nationality laws. Also, it was found that the main risk groups were children of illegal immigrants, non-nationals, and unregistered parents, and the main problematic domain is found to be the domain of supply.

A birth certificate provides a child with a legal identity, nationality, is a vital action towards child protection and can help a child access social welfare. Worldwide, almost 230 million children under the age of five have not been registered. Other than the vast negative impacts on the child it creates a blind spot in population statistics. Indonesia is one of the countries where the problem is widespread - only 57 percent of the children under the age of five have a birth certificate. In December 2013 a law was ratified in Indonesia, imposing changes in the birth registration process. This paper seeks to explore how the target group of that law, i.e. parents, perceive their possibility to comply with the policy, that is, to obtain a birth certificate for their children.  Based on a field study in Nusa Tenggara Timur, Indonesia, conducting in-depth interviews with 58 parents as well as stakeholders such as policy implementers and NGOs, this thesis will propose that there is a variance in how the policy has been implemented in different regencies. The results indicate that the variance in the implementation, as well as the policy setting prior implementation in each regency, affects the parents’ perceived possibility to comply. In one of the studied regencies the implementation of the policy has affected the parents’ possibility to comply in a critically negative way, increasing the hindrances to obtain a birth certificate. Further, the regency politicians have created forced incentives to comply by making birth certificate mandatory to register for school, creating a vast risk of removing childrens’ access to education.