Cameroon hopes to fully digitize civil registration system by 2029

As part of broader efforts to digitize Cameroon’s civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) system, the country is launching launch a four-year plan that will centralize and coordinate these efforts across multiple government institutions.

According to an informational video published by Vital Strategies, the plan to be launched in 2025 will run through 2029. It is being rolled out with support from the Bloomberg Philanthropies Date for Health Initiative.

Per the plan, Cameroon hopes to establish a fully digital civil registration system by 2029, paving the way for citizens to have a registration system that is “accurate, accessible, and future-ready.”

Already, the government has implemented a pilot in about 40 councils in partnership with OpenCRVS within the framework of the digitization efforts.

“Cameroon is in the process of modernizing its civil registration system in terms of the obligation to declare and register all vital events. This involves the elaboration of a strategic plan for 2025-2029,” says Eliane Akoa Efa, head of the universal birth registration in Africa, and senior official at the National Civil Registration Office of Cameroon

“The new plan seeks to address some of the inadequacies of the old strategic plan.”

Efa also explains that as part of the plan, efforts are being made at various level in terms of training and awareness-raising with regard to the registration of births, marriages and death, strengthening interoperability between the civil registration and health systems with the opening of civil registration centers in health facilities, as well as strengthening links and partnerships with other important stakeholders in the chain.

One of the key objectives of Cameroon’s CRVS digitization program is to replace the analogue manner in which civil registration documents are issued.

“Currently we are in the process of preparing the training of our personnel so that they can be able to migrate from handwritten birth certificates to digital birth certificates. We have the support of the BUNEC in this process,” says Charly Olivier Lobe Priso, Mayor of Njombe-Penja, a council in the Littoral Region of the country.

Since 2009, many initiatives have been undertaken by the government of Cameroon in the light of setting up a digital CRVS system, with support form various companies and organizations under the ‘Support Programme for the Modernisation of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (PAMEC)’. The first phase of this support program (PAMEC I) was implemented up until 2021, PAMEC was launched in 2021 and is expected to run out in by the end of this year.

The new 2025-2029 plan is thus expected to capitalize on the gains already registered as far as the digitization process is concerned.

In July, the government of Cameroon signed a grant agreement with Korea through the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), totaling $4.8 million, to support the ongoing civil registration digitization efforts.

The modernization plan includes the putting in place of a new civil registration legislation which Biometric Update understands has already been drafted and is at an advanced stage of review.

BUNEC says more than 60 percent of births are registered in Cameroon.

Article Topics

Africa  |  Cameroon  |  civil registration  |  CRVS  |  digital government  |  digital ID  |  government services  |  Vital Strategies