Provisions in the Child Rights Act recognizes every child’s right to a name. The Act further indicates that the birth of every child shall be registered.
Birth registration is the first step towards establishing legal identity as without it a child may face difficulties in accessing basic services such as education and healthcare as well as in exercising their rights as a citizen.
Nigeria is reported to have the largest population of unregistered children in sub-Sahara Africa.
According to the 2021 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) about 1 in every 4 births of Nigerian children aged under 5 years are not registered.
The survey further indicates that only 33 percent of these registered children have a birth certificate.
To change the narrative, the United Nations Children’s Education Fund UNICEF in collaboration with the National Population Commission NPC forged an alliance to explore innovative measures to ensure every child is registered at birth.
According to Hajia Fatima Adamu, Child Protection Specialist, UNICEF emphasis in the new country plan for the next five years is to evolve from paper birth registration to digital system. Kano is among the leading states in Nigeria with low birth registration.
In the MICs report, the North West state recorded 55 percent birth registration, a development experts considers worrisome considering it’s population.
However, the State Government says it is committed to change the narrative as it has made birth registration certificate a criteria for enrolment of pupils into primary schools Using the Kano model as a case study, the need to initiate more policies to boost the nations birth registration profile have been identified as the way to go.
They also indicated what the nations stands to gain from the birth registration exercise.
It is expected that more breakthroughs would be achieved if the states and other stakeholders initiate measures that would boost birth registration in the country inline with UNICEF’s commitment to rolled out birth registration of one million children in Kano in 2023 using the digital system.
