The team registering births

In partnership with the national registration services, Plan has created a mobile registry office that travels in a caravan, to ensure that births are registered in the 8 communities covered by the Garoua programme unit.

Registering a child is a complicated exercise in areas that only have 1 registry office and where more than 70% of births take place at home. Some parents are forced to travel distances of more than 40km, either on foot, or using unsafe modes of transport. In this situation, registering a birth is not a priority, and is sometimes even judged unnecessary.

A newborn, a birth certificate

Plan’s project, called ‘A newborn, a birth certificate,’ is changing this situation by mobilizing a registry office team. The team travels in a caravan, which stops for a day in each participating community. Children aged less than 30 days are identified and their birth certificates are produced.

Begun recently by the chief of the district of Touroua, in partnership with Plan’s Programme Unit in the north and the national registry office, the project has recorded 153 certificates in 9 villages in Touroua in only 11 days of operation.

Reaching children and families

The strengths of this project are that it can easily reach children and families, and that it has government partners. Thanks to the caravan, Mbororo minorities who struggled to use fixed registry offices due to large distances have successfully been reached. When Fatima, 26, learnt that the caravan was coming to her community, she didn’t hesitate to go and register her 3 little girls.

“Someone working for the chief of the village told us about the project and told us the benefits of having a birth certificate. None of my daughters had the document and my husband and I didn’t understand the necessity of having a birth certificate, especially because going there [the nearest registry office] wasn’t easy.”

During the operation, populations received training on the importance of birth certificates and a community intermediary was chosen to ensure the future completion of birth declarations, and take them to the nearest registry office. Once certificates are produced, the same intermediary will then give them back to families. In the long term this operation will systematically increase the number of children who have a birth certificate within a time frame of 30 days.

Learn more about Plan’s Universal Birth Registration campaign