Risa Arai is UNDP’s Programme Specialist on Legal Identity, based at UNDP HQ in New York. In this position, she coordinates ‘UN Legal Identity Agenda Task Force’, where more than 12 UN agencies work together and support Member States to build holistic, country-owned, sustainable civil registration, vital statistics and identity management systems in a coherent manner. She also functions as a project manager and provides technical and operational support to UNDP Country Offices, contributes to the development of the UN’s policy and UNDP’s guideline on civil registration, national identity schemes, privacy, and data protection, and promotes engagement with private sector.