NPC, UNICEF to register 25m births in 3 years

The National Population Commission (NPC) and the United Nations Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF) plan to register 25 million births in Nigeria in the next three years.

They said it is a means of ramping up vital data for economic development in the country.

Chief of Child Protection at UNICEF, Ibrahim Sesay, said this during a media parley for the celebration of the 2021 Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRSV) Day in Abuja yesterday.

Sesay birth registration is child rights and should not be denied to any child.

He said civil registrations are important for monitoring SDG goals as this provides up-to-date population data for evidencebased emergency response.

He said UNICEF is supporting the development of a roadmap for clear civil birth registration in Nigeria and this will involve massive registration of new births in the country.

Chairman of NPC, Nasir Isa Kwarra, said currently, 43 percent of under-five children are registered and not more than 10% of deaths are registered in Nigeria.

“What this translates into is that many are born and die without leaving a trace of their existence in any legal record in the country,” he said.

He said the Commission is automating its registration processes to increase civil registration in Nigeria.

Committee Chairman of the CRSV, Dr Ismaila Lawal Suleiman, said the Day is celebrated since 2018 by African countries to inspire member states to scale up civil registration on the continent to improve the wellbeing of people.