Breaking Down the Documentation Barrier.
Millions remain trapped by fragmented records and documentation. Civitas ID is building secure, portable identity systems that allow displaced and vulnerable individuals to prove who they are, and what they have done, wherever they are.
For people without formal documentation, the barrier to opportunity is not only a lack of resources. It is the inability to prove who they are and what they have done in a way governments, banks, employers, schools, and health providers recognize. Without that recognition, formal work, financial services, healthcare, and education remain inaccessible. The lost human and economic potential is the problem Civitas exists to solve.
This documentation barrier affects nearly a billion people worldwide. Forced displacement is where the barrier is most acute. Driven by climate, conflict, persecution, and war, forced displacement is a growing crisis. Today, 117.8 million people are forcibly displaced worldwide. For many, documents are lost, destroyed, or unrecognized across borders. Humanitarian aid and government support for these populations is declining.
Civitas is focusing here first.
For example, a nurse credentialed in one country is forced to work in informal, potentially exploitative systems in the next. A mechanic with twenty years of work history cannot be verified by an employer who needs the labor. A construction worker paid in cash cannot open a bank account, so his wages sit in a drawer instead of a savings account. A teacher cannot register her own children for school. The capability exists. The digital infrastructure and institutional recognition do not.
The Crisis is Growing
people are forcibly displaced worldwide
people could be displaced by 2050, driven by climate migration, ecological threats, and population growth in vulnerable regions.
By 2050, roughly 1 in 8 people globally could be displaced.
The People Behind the Numbers
Isabel
Motivated, capable, high-achieving: Isabel is a small business owner.
In Venezuela, Isabel worked as a finance executive at one of Latin America's largest companies. Now she works long hours in a small storefront in Colombia. She greets regulars, negotiates with suppliers, and keeps her own books down to the centavo. The business is a success.
When she arrived in Colombia, she needed a loan to get her business off the ground and she found one. But the bank charged her a 42% APR because she had no way to prove who she was. No way to show the spotless credit history she had built over decades.
Her financial history simply didn't cross the border with her. 92% of Venezuelan migrants face the same financial erasure.
Civitas ID is building the credential infrastructure that people like Isabel need to carry their financial history across borders and access the capital they've already proved they can manage.
Name and some details changed to protect privacy.
Malual
Sharp, self-taught, ambitious: Malual is a technologist.
He lives in a refugee camp in Turkana County, Kenya, home to approximately 305,000 people. He's lived there for most of his life. He barely remembers South Sudan. Decades of war have separated him from his family's ancestral lands and much of his people's rich cultural traditions.
Despite intermittent internet and third-hand devices, he's now an impressive self-taught coder.
When the Civitas team arrived to share a prototype, Malual wanted to know what coding language they were using. He asked whether they had built with agentic AI. He offered incisive critiques of the UX. Then he asked if the team wanted him and other coders at the camp to help improve it.
The talent in Kakuma is obvious. The barrier is documentation.
Civitas ID is building the credential infrastructure so that the next generation of developers and problem-solvers can get to work, wherever they are.
Name and some details changed to protect privacy.
How Civitas Works
Civitas is the digital public infrastructure connecting people to the institutions that issue and verify the documents they need to access essential services. We do not replace official documents. We do four things:
Understand. We help people learn what documents they need and where to get them.
Automate. We streamline processes that today are slow, expensive, and often inaccessible.
Secure. We provide a digital wallet where people store and manage their verifiable credentials.
Connect. We link people with providers of essential services who accept those credentials.
Product
Civitas is critical last-mile Digital Public Infrastructure. It connects existing Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), like national ID systems, payment rails, and government services, to the displaced and vulnerable populations these systems were not built to reach. It does this through four connected components.
The Document Resource Center
shows people what is required and the services they can unlock. It tells them which documents they need to open a bank account, get a work permit, or start a business. It shows them the steps required, in what order, with tools to navigate often complex processes.
The Civitas ID App
securely holds the verifiable digital credentials users have obtained and earned. The credentials are recognized by governments, multilaterals, banks, employers, schools, health providers, and humanitarian organizations. They go with the person, wherever they are.
The Civitas ID Console
gives organizations the tools to onboard, serve, and support migrants by verifying or issuing verifiable digital credentials. Integrated into an organization's existing systems, it supports a wide range of use cases: issuance and renewal of ID documents, digital public service access, KYC/AML, education and professional credentialing.
The Orchestration Engine
connects users and institutions to each other in personalized user journeys that help users successfully achieve their goals. The person's documents and history can be held, managed, and used across changing legal and regulatory requirements, borders, and programs.
Open Source
The Civitas technology is open-source. A government, multilateral institution, NGO, or partner can take the open-source code, run it on their own infrastructure, and operate it independently. It is also inspectable, which means privacy and data handling claims can be verified rather than trusted.
Ecosystem
We are honored to work with the following organizations expanding access to economic participation for people around the world.
Trust and distribution
- Jesuit Refugee Service, Norwegian Refugee Council, Cohere, Strathmore University Forced Migration and Displacement Research Hub, TUSA, Konexio
Tech layer
- The Gates Foundation, IDEO.org, Bridgenext, Stellar, GovStack, Inji, Etymos ID
Service providers
- Tala, Movii, Aavance