Jodie Bjerregaard, Minister-Counsellor, Regional Director Mekong provided opening remarks on behalf of the Australian Government Department of Home Affairs, which provides primary funding for the Regional Support Office of the Bali Process (RSO).  

Jodie Bjerregaard spoke to the Australian Government Department of Home Affairs’ role in co-managing the RSO alongside colleagues from Indonesia since its establishment in 2012, celebrating the strength of the bilateral relationship between Australia and Indonesia, and the demonstrable and tangible benefits of bilateral and multilateral partnerships and cooperation achieved through the Bali Process.  

RSO Co-Managers David Scott (Australia) and Fuad Adriansyah (Indonesia) also provided short remarks setting out progress achieved working together with Bali Process Members and looking forward across the RSO 2024-2026 Work Plan.

The RSO commissions a performance each year for the Members Engagement Function to support inclusion of the perspective of an individual with lived experience in the RSO’s work. This year, the RSO worked together with multimedia artist Fairuz Sulamain, and Kanteera Techaphattanaku, who shared Kanteera’s firsthand experiences of statelessness through a narrative and visual performance. 

The performance, which shared Kanteera’s story through paper cuttings, collages and stop-motion animations, also acknowledged Thailand’s efforts to respond to statelessness, which it has committed to ending through global pledges including the Global Alliance to End Statelessness. In 2024, Thailand approved an accelerated pathway to citizenship for around 480,000 stateless people who have lived in the country since 1984. Birth registration is available to all children born in Thailand, regardless of their parents’ nationality. 

A digital photo exhibition of Greg Constantine’s ‘Nowhere People’ project complemented these personal narratives. The images illustrated how lack of legal documentation creates cycles of poverty, restricts mobility, limits economic opportunities, and affects access to essential services —limitations that often drive people toward irregular migration in search of better opportunities and safety.

The performance also highlighted the Bali Process Toolkit for Inclusive Civil Registration and the Guidance on Birth Registration for Civil Registrars as practical resources that can support governments, through a framework to assess their civil registration systems and address practical barriers to civil registration.  

The toolkit promotes inclusive civil registration taking in the needs of vulnerable populations including people living in rural, remote, isolated or border areas; minorities; indigenous people; migrants; non-citizens; asylum seekers; refugees; stateless people; and people without documentation.  

The 2023 Bali Process Civil Registration Assessment Toolkit features a strengthened focus on promoting inclusive civil registration. This updated version builds upon the original toolkit developed by the RSO and the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) following the Sixth Bali Process Ministerial Conference in 2016, when Members highlighted the importance of comprehensive civil registration in providing access to legal identity and basic protection to individuals—and the importance of legal identity in tracking migration flows. 

The enhanced toolkit incorporates insights gained from its pilot implementation by the governments of Pakistan, Thailand, and Viet Nam over 2019–2022. 

Should you require any additional information about the Members’ Engagement Function or the implementation of the Bali Process Civil Registration Assessment Toolkit and the Guidance on Birth Registration for Civil Registrars, please do not hesitate to email: info@rso.baliprocess.net.