Supporting municipalities in Cameroon to improve the civil registration rate

Context

In Cameroon, the civil registration system encounters challenges in registering both births and deaths, with only half of all births and very few deaths being recorded. The absence of birth certificates later leads to exclusions from essential services such as formal education, healthcare, travel privileges, voting rights, and the ability to open a bank account or acquire property. One reason for the registration difficulties within municipalities and the responsible ministry are the obstacles faced by the population. These include financial constraints, lack of information, and the long distances to the civil registration offices. Furthermore, gender disparities persist, with girls being less often registered than boys, and unmarried mothers facing stigma at the agencies. The lack of a birth certificate also facilitates forced marriages and undermines women’s rights within informal unions. Additionally, there are no population statistics based on a functioning civil registration system, which impedes effective socio-economic and development planning both locally and nationally.

Objective

The municipalities are capable to register all birth and death cases, and regularly share accurate population statistics with ministries.

Approach

The project assists selected municipalities in improving the civil registration services and raise the registration rate of births and deaths through the following measures:

• Improving information sharing and raising awareness among the population.
• Enhancing collaboration between municipal administrations, health centres and courts of justice.
• Providing training and support for municipalities in basic population statistics development.
• Collaborating with civil society organisations to monitor service delivery and offering recommendations.
• Piloting the digitalisation of the registration system with OpenCRVS, an open-source software, together with our partner municipalities and the responsible ministry.

The project realises this digitalisation initiative in partnership with the South-Korean cooperation agency KOICA, which is also co-financing the initiative.

Last update: March 2024