Accounting For Every Child: Nigeria Moves To Digitalise Birth Registration

One of the reasons why Nigeria still record zero dose children was due to the fact that they are not included in the data base of the country, stakeholders have averred.

As of 2022, there were an estimated 2.2 million children in Nigeria who had not been immunized, also known as Zero-Dose children. This figure is the second largest population of Zero-Dose children in the world.

For instance, the latest National Population Commission (NPC) data, revealed that population of Nigeria is 216,783,381; children under five is 16,705,671 and children under 1 is 3,554.005. Meanwhile, there are 164 million unregistered children worldwide, with more than half (around 91 million, representing 56 per cent) living in Africa.

The chief of the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF field office for South West Nigeria, Celine Lafoucriere told me that  birth registration is a fundamental human right, and without legal identity, a child remains unavailable and invisible.

“A registered child has acknowledged rights to protection and also to healthcare, education and other critical services. Without child registration, these children remain invisible to our governments, making it difficult to plan adequately for them in terms of immunization, access to quality healthcare services and education” Lafoucriere added.

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Recall that president Bola Tinubu inaugurated the national coordination committee of the electronic Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (e-CRVS) system under the National Population Commission (NPC). The platform will digitalise all civil documentation such as birth and stillbirth registration, birth attestation, adoption, marriage notification, divorce notification, migration and death.

Speaking on the e-birth registration, Lafoucriere, at a two-day media dialogue, organised by UNICEF, NPC and the Lagos state Ministry of Youth and Social Development, in Lagos, said it is a formidable opportunity to get more children registered and have a legal identity, adding that it cuts off the issues like geographic distance, and makes it easier for parents to register their children as soon as they are born.

Describing It as an innovative approach, she said it stands truly as a game changer for a country like Nigeria, with huge distances to cover, and it offers a huge opportunity to create a very robust and reliable civil registration system.

“That not only records birth, but also generates vital statistics that are, as you know, not only necessary for effective planning and implementation of policy, but also for budgeting, and that is extremely crucial. If the government does not know how many children it has to budget for, it cannot do it efficiently.”