Representing the Registration Problem: A Critical Policy Analysis of Somalia’s Federal CRVS Architecture Using Bacchi’s WPR Approach

Abstract In fragile states, Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems are routinely conceptualized as neutral benchmarks for achieving SDG 16.9 universal legal identity for all. Somalia presents one of the most acute cases, with an estimated 97% of its population lacking formal registration. While existing scholarship has concentrated largely on technical diagnostics and humanitarian data harmonization, to my knowledge no prior study has subjected Somalia's emerging federal CRVS policy architecture to systematic critical analysis. This paper employs Carol Bacchi's "What's the Problem Represented to be?" (WPR) approach to examine a corpus of nine foundational federal policy documents spanning 2016–2023. The analysis identifies three core findings: that framing the registration problem as a "technical capacity gap" appears to depoliticize identity governance and to facilitate a performance of "ceremonial statehood": the government appears to project functionality to international audiences while deferring domestic political negotiations; that the accompanying embrace of biometric digital leapfrogging functions as a mechanism of international extraversion, prioritising metrics legible to donor institutions over the lived identity needs of nomadic, rural, and displaced communities; and that the corpus constructs a new legal-political category, the "biometric subject," whose access to rights is discursively conditioned on digital enrolment compliance.