Working with governments

Advocacy

Plan lobbies governments at local and national levels to increase the political will for birth registration. Advocacy has included:

• in Indonesia, working at national, provincial and municipal levels through hearings with government and legislative bodies, which led to the abolition of birth registration fees in the city of Makassar
• persuading the government in Guinea Bissau to reduce the cost of birth registration for children following a pilot birth registration project in a Plan program area, highlighting costs as discouraging parents from registering their children.

Technical support

Plan provides technical support to governments wishing to make civil registration legislation more effective. This work includes strengthening structures through which birth registration can be delivered and enhancing the capacity of government officials and other relevant parties to undertake the process.

Plan’s technical work has covered, for example, working with: 

• government bodies in three districts in Bangladesh and establishing stakeholder committees to help drive the implementation of the state’s own legal framework for registration.
• the Vietnamese government's Ministry Of Justice to improve the country's birth registration rate by helping to develop a standardised birth registration system through a process of reviewing and amending legislation and establishing steering committees  at various levels
• the local government in Pakistan and the rural development minister to make birth registration a priority in pilot project areas through organising a “training of trainers” session and providing all the town municipal administrations with computers so that they can link into the National Database and Registration Authority.

Partnership

Plan works in partnership with governments to implement birth registration programs by carrying out activities such as:

• a collaboration with the Justice Department in Senegal, which led to a three-month campaign to register births free of charge across the country
• working with the government of Ghana to develop a national action plan for birth registration.