The Institution of a Birth Registration Day:
September 1st of Every Year

The Registry successfully celebrated the first ever national "Births and Deaths Registration Day" on the 151 September 2004 with the chiefs and people of Teshie, a fishing community near Accra. Similar programmes were held in selected districts in all the ten regions of the country to sensitize the people about births and deaths registration and to take the registration facility to the doorstep of the people.

Over 10,000 children were registered around the country on that day alone. This event will be celebrated on September 151 of every year. The aim of the celebration is to solicit government support and public acceptance and to create sustained awareness about the importance and benefits of births and deaths registration.

The week preceding the 151 September of every year will feature a number of media activities on the importance of births and deaths registration. This will climax into a grand durbar of the chiefs and people and various stakeholders in selected communities.

Collaboration with the Ministry of Health

A partnership between the Ministry of Local Government and the Ministry of Health to register births has been established. Under this arrangement, Births and Deaths Registration Officers will team up with Public Health Teams to visit various communities during National Immunization Days. It is anticipated that this will enhance capturing records of births. Plans are also under way to modify the contents of the existing "Road to Health Cards" to facilitate the initial recording of the vital events by public health personnel for collection by birth registration agents who would follow this up with the corresponding birth certificate.
e similar results.

Community Volunteer Schemes

UNICEF is currently supporting the Registry to engage community volunteers in the Northern, Upper East and Greater Accra Regions of the country to expand coverage.

These volunteers are expected to collect information on births and deaths in their communities for onward transmission to the nearest Births and Deaths Registries for registration and certification.

To facilitate this process, the Registry has trained a total of 170 volunteers (60 for the Upper East, 60 for the Northern and 50 for the Greater Accra regions) to commence the collection. of information on births and deaths in their respective communities.

Community Population Register Schemes

Plan GHANA signed a memorandum of understanding with the Registry on 7th June 2004 with the objective of increasing birth registration coverage from 20%-60% in the Central, Eastern and Upper West Regions of the country by 2006.

The Community Population Register Scheme will be employed and financed to bring birth registration eroser to the people. Currently the programme is being piloted in six communities across four districts in the Central Region of Ghana.

This will be extended to the Eastern and Upper West Regions after the pilot phase and later replicated countrywide depending on the level of success achieved.

The Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, which has oversight responsibility for the Births and Deaths Registry, has also provided financial and logistical support, in the form of bicycles and motor bikes to unit committee members and the Registry respectively, to facilitate the introduction of a community based registration scheme in six deprived districts on pilot basis.

According to the Registry the Community Population Register Scheme is designed to enhance the registration of births and deaths at the community level. It makes provision for the continuous recording and updating of information on every individual in the population of a community. It is a system of data collection in which details of names, sex, date of birth, educational level, marital status, immunization status etc. of persons residing in the community are recorded and regularly updated with the occurrence of births, deaths and movements.

The efficient implementation of this programme will offer, among other things, the following advantages:

• It will facilitate the timely reporting of births (and deaths) for registration in the various communities.
  It will prove beneficial for planning at the community level during inter census periods.
  • The records can be used as checks in the review of electoral registers and of social security records.
• It would facilitate the issuing of National Identity Cards.
  It will provide an effective means for the evaluation of decennial censuses.