Cameroon civil registration agency lobbies govt to officialize ID Day

The National Civil Status Registration Office of Cameroon (BUNEC) used the International Identity Day observed recently to highlight how vital identity documents are in advancing the country’s socio-economic development, and for the government to officialize the commemoration of the day.

Each year since 2018, some countries in Africa and other parts of the world hold events on September 16 to emphasize the importance of legal identity, in line with target 16.9 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which calls for everyone in the world to have a legal identity, including birth registration, by the year 2030.

As of 2024, five African countries have officially recognized the day and hold official events to mark it, while several others are in the process of doing so, according to ID4Africa – the identity movement championing the cause.

BUNEC, which is the government agency responsible for managing civil registration in Cameroon, used the day this year to underline the undeniable importance of birth registration. The agency held a couple of events including a roundtable and a press lunch with reporters as part of a campaign for the official recognition of September 16 as ID Day in Cameroon.

At the moment, International Identity Day is a commemoration that is not yet officially recognised by the United Nations, but there’s been a campaign, fronted by ID4Africa, for the day to be added to the United Nations calendar of globally recognised commemorations.

The BUNEC events were organised at the country office of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Yaounde.

“Statistics of people in the world without an identity are alarming. It’s the same case in Cameroon especially if we look at the number of school-going children who do not have a birth certificate. In the last academic year, about 1.4 million of these children were identified. It is imperative to make them have a proof of their identity,” said Jean Hyacinthe Ebela, technical adviser at BUNEC and ID4Africa Ambassador for Cameroon.

“We celebrate many International Days; there is even a Global Handwashing Day. We cannot continue to ignore identity. Without an identity, you cannot go to school. In fact, without it, you don’t even exist. That is why we are leading the lobby, under the auspices of ID4Africa, for the government to institute Identity Day in Cameroon.”

There has been a collaboration for about 80,000 undocumented school children to have birth certificates in Cameroon.

As part of the ID Day commemoration this year, BUNEC also published sensitization messages calling on Cameroonians to make sure they register the birth of their children within the 90-day period as provided for by the 1981 civil status registration ordinance, amended by the law of May 2011.

BUNEC is an important actor in the legal identity journey in Cameroon as it is the body responsible for issuing birth certificates which are an important foundational ID needed to establish national identity cards and other credentials such as passports.

The agency is at the forefront of efforts to modernize Cameroon’s civil registration system, to make the process of obtaining birth, marriage and death certificates not only seamless, but secure.

Article Topics

Africa  |  birth registration  |  Cameroon  |  civil registration  |  ID4Africa  |  identity management  |  International Identity Day  |  legal identity  |  SDG 16.9