Despite heavy investment on large-scale citizen identification systems, akin to the UID-Aadhaar project, these often run the risk of increased exclusion of the most vulnerable and marginalised groups, a new World Bank study cautions.
While the study, titled “Identification systems don’t always serve the bottom 40%”, does not specifically discuss Aadhaar, it analyses similar systems in several Asian and African countries and finds “less than robust” evidence to justify their multi-million dollar budgets.
It cautions of a real risk in “over-selling” development benefits of identification systems, especially those related to service delivery, which is primarily what the Indian government intends to use Aadhaar for.
“Attracted by the promise of new technology, countries and development partners ... have invested heavily in identification systems ... [however] rigorous evidence on the link between registration/ documentation and development outcomes is limited and mixed,” the study says.
Authors Megan Brewer, Nicholas Menzies and Jared Schott argue that strengthening large-scale identification systems could result in several “perverse consequences” that undermine development gains.”
Since registration among marginalised groups, like rural poor, could be significantly lower than national averages, using such data for development planning could result in further exclusion of these groups, the researchers say.
