Birth registration progresses globally but big gaps remain in Sub Saharan Africa: UNICEF

About 8 in 10 children globally below the age of five have had a birth registration around the world in the last five years, says a UNCEF report released on December 10.

The report tiled The Right Start in Life: Global levels and trends in birth registration, 2024 update, however states that major gaps remain to be filled to provide every child with legal recognition especially in sub-Saharan Africa, in line with the SDG 16.9 agenda.

While the progress means that over 500 million children of this age group now have legal identity, the UN agency’s report regrets that as many as 150 million others around the world remain “unregistered and invisible to government systems” with 90 million of this number in sub-Saharan Africa. A world Bank survey in 2021 and 2022 found that low birth registration was among the factors hindering access to legal identity in sub-Saharan Africa.

The report, which is the first by UNICEF on the number of children with birth registration since the one of 2019, was released on the 78th anniversary of the agency’s founding. It shows that the rate of birth registration for children increased from 75 percent in 2019 to 77 percent in 2024, with the increase driven principally by efforts by countries to prioritize early birth declarations and registration.

Commenting following the release of the report, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell, said: “Birth registration ensures children are immediately recognized under the law, providing a foundation for protection from harm and exploitation, as well as access to essential services like vaccines, healthcare, and education.”

“As UNICEF marks 78 years of championing children’s rights today, we celebrate the progress made for millions of children in gaining their right to a legal identity, while calling for stronger efforts to ensure that every child, everywhere, is registered at birth.”

50M registered children without a birth certificate

According to the report, about 50 million children whose births were registered were never issued a birth certificate which is a vital document to enable children enjoy their full rights.

Russell believes this should not be happening: “Despite progress, too many children remain uncounted and unaccounted for – effectively invisible in the eyes of the government or the law. Every child has the right to be registered and provided with a birth certificate so that they are recognized, protected, and supported.”

One key finding in the report shows regional disparities in birth registration rates. Latin Americana and the Caribbean made the most progress at 95 percent; Eastern and South-Eastern Asia follows at 94 percent and then Central and Southern Asia with 78 percent. Sub-Saharan African tails the chart at 51 percent birth registration rate, with more than half of the number of children without legal identity in the world.

How to make more progress

The report analyses the trend within Africa which varies significantly, blaming the difficulties in birth registration to various factors such as “weak political commitment, long distances and multiple visits to registration facilities, lack of knowledge about the registration process, unaffordable fees and prohibitive indirect costs, and, in some places, discrimination based on gender, ethnicity, or religion.”

To reverse the trend and add up the traction on child birth registration, the UNICEF report recommends five major actions which governments must take. These include enforcing measures to register every child at birth; streamlining birth registration processes; leveraging health, social protection, and education programs to boost birth registration; implementing key legal reforms and empowering communities to understand the imperative of getting a birth certificate for a child.

The report also highlights some of the initiatives being led by UNICEF in partnership with governments to drive birth registration such as implementing digital solutions for faster and efficient registration processes and by integrating birth registration with health and national identity systems.

UNICEF is supporting several Sub Saharan African countries including Nigeria as well as nations in other parts on accelerating birth registration.

Article Topics

birth registration  |  children  |  digital identity  |  identity management  |  legal identity  |  SDG 16.9  |  UNICEF