Plan Ghana Boosts Births Registration

By William Yaw Owusu

Thursday, 15 February 2007
The effort to attain 100 per cent birth registration coverage by the end of the year received a major boost with the presentation of logistics worth over a billion cedis to the Births and Deaths Registry (BDR) in Accra yesterday.

The presentation was done by Plan Ghana, a child centred development organisation, championing the welfare of children in the country.

They donated 16 motorbikes, 16 computers and its accessories as well as a colour photo-copier to facilitate data processing and mobility of the officers of BDR especially in the districts.

Plan Ghana has been operating in 13 districts in the Eastern, Central and Upper West Regions since 1997 and they signed a memorandum of understanding to support the BDR in its activities in June 2004.

In a short address, Stephen Asamoah Boateng, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development identified low public knowledge of the importance and benefits that registration holds for individuals and the nation as a whole as the major setback towards the development of vital registration system.

To address the problem he said the BDR is pursuing a public education and sensitisation exercise, noting that "Plan Ghana has supported the initiative by funding the provision of information, communication and education materials".

The Minister also said that in the area of data collection for national development where the Statistical Service, the BDR, District Assemblies and traditional authorities had collaborated, Plan Ghana had committed about ¢1.5 billion into the project called Community Population Register Programme (CPRP).

Mr. Samuel Paulos, country Director of Plan Ghana, proposed that year 2007 be dedicated to all childrens, whereby parents and guardians would allowed to register children under the age of eight free of charge.

He said Plan Ghana had already signed a partnership agreement worth ¢2.5 billion with the BD R for a three year period adding that this partnership had a significant impart in the birth registration exercise.

Mr. S.P. Ankrah, the Registrar of BDR said they were activities promoting the universal birth registration campaign and had appointed Mr. David Dontoh, a renowed actor as the goodwill ambassador for the programme.