As noted by Jaanus, Estonia is the “most certified nation” per capita according to Brainbench.
Everyone can now print out their Estonia-cert, which says: “This award is in recognition of the nation whose people have shown their dedication to making improvements in business and technology by demonstrating their skills, knowledge and abilities as well as representing the talent that lies within their region. Congratulations to Estonia!”
Back in 2000 or 2001 we promoted BB heavily at CV-Online resume database, integrating the whole BB system into ours, so the certs were linked to people’s CV’s. The whole BB service, including mailing you nice printed certs, was free, so people used it a lot. Not sure how many use the service nowadays.
Somewhere I have my own certs from that time as well, from areas like Master High IT Aptitude, Master Internet Security Specialist and Unix Adminitrator.