The Management and staff of the Births and Deaths Registry have been commended for automating their operation and services by piloting an online payment portal on Ghana.gov, and also establishing a call centre to respond to public enquiries.

They were also encouraged to work hard to create a safe and friendly environment for the registration of births and deaths in the country.

The commendation came at the launch of the Mobile Mass Registration Exercise and publicizing the need to register births and deaths events at the Registry’s new office located within the National Association of Local Government Authority (NALAG) building in Accra.

Launching the registration exercise, the Minister for Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Hon. Daniel Botwe stressed the government’s commitment to strengthen the identity management eco-system in the country by ensuring that policies, laws, regulations  and guidelines were available and implemented at all times.

He said the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development (MLGDRD), which is responsible for Births and Deaths, spearheaded the enactment of the Registration of the Births and Deaths Act 2020 (Act 1027), passed by Parliament and assented to by H. E. President Akufo-Addo in October 2020. The Act ensures that the Registry’s operations are decentralised and its functions are clearly outlined.

He noted that the revised legal frameworks mandate the Registry to develop a robust and credible registration system which ensures that every birth and death that occurs in the country is registered within a specified time.

He disclosed that birth registration is free from zero to twelve month and similarly, death registration within the first ten days after occurrence is also at no cost.

Source: MLGDRD Public Relations Unit

The Minister for Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Hon. Daniel Botwe has presented two thousand, four hundred and fifty (2,450) mobile tablets and eight vehicles to the Births and Deaths Registry to facilitate and improve upon the registration of births and deaths across the country.

The mobile tablets and vehicles were from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), through the efforts of the Office of the Vice President, Dr. Mahmudu Bawumia, under the Harmonizing and Improving Statistics in West Africa Project (HISWAP) funded by the World Bank, a  project to strengthen the statistical systems in the West African sub-region.

Launching the Mobile Mass Registration campaign, Hon. Daniel Botwe was hopeful that the logistics to the Registry would help improve statistics in both births and deaths fields.

He noted that in 2021, the Registry recorded 80% births and only 17% deaths, outlining that the registration of the later is the greatest constraints in the record system due to the low importance attached to it.

He emphasised that Section 32 (4) of the Registration of the Births and Deaths Act 2020 (1027 ) required that a person who conducts burial shall inspect the death certificate and burial permit before proceeding with the burial, which mandates everyone to comply.

He therefore entreated the media which he described as key stakeholders in publicizing the activities of the Registry in the mobile mass campaign especially at the sub-district level to partner with the Registry to educate and sensitise the public on the issuance of certificates, the verification of registration of births and deaths, search of records of births and deaths as well as the issuance of burial permit.

  Source: MLGDRD Public Relations Unit

The Births and Deaths Registry (BDR) has initiated a Mobile Mass Registration (MMR) Exercise in Accra as part of the process to attain universal vital registration to aid government plan and develop socio-economic programmes with the use of a reliable and credible data.

Also, steps are being taken to integrate the registration system with related government agencies such as the National Identification Authority (NIA) and National Health Insurance Authority (NHIA) to improve upon administrative data gathering to ensured that every child born in the country is registered and given an identification number.

This is in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child, which gives every child the right to be legally registered and legitimately documented by government in consistent with the Sustainable Development Goal Nine (9).  This makes any child who is unregistered to stand the risk of being unable to access social intervention programmes.

These were contained in a speech delivered by the Honourable Minister for Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Mr. Daniel Botwe at the launch of the Mobile Mass Registration (MMR) Exercise.

This exercise contributes to the attainment of universal vital registration in Ghana. Through public education and sensitization on the need and importance of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics.

Public awareness understanding of births and deaths registrations is essential to government’s planning and development of socio-economic programmes.

The occasion was used to distribute two thousand, four hundred and fifty (2,450) mobile tablets and eighty (8) vehicles to the BDR regional offices across the country.

Source: MLGDRD Public Relations Unit