Ghana Plan supports Births and Deaths Registry

Accra, Aug. 25, GNA - Eight districts have been selected to have their Unit Committee Members trained by the Births and Deaths Registry to record all births and deaths in their communities.

This forms part of collaboration between the Registry and the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to use the sub-district structure to collect information on births and deaths.

Mr Kwadjo Adjei Darko, Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, announced this at a press conference in Accra on Wednesday to highlight activities marking this year's Births and Deaths Registration Week celebrations.

The Births and Deaths Day falls on September 1.

The Minister said the selected district assemblies would give proper accommodation to the Births and Deaths Registry while the Ministry provided logistics, such as bicycles for the unit committee members, motorbikes for the registrars and equip the offices with computers.

He said already UNICEF was funding a pilot training programme for community level volunteers to collect and report on births in the Greater Accra, Northern and Upper East Regions.

Public Health Nurses would also receive training to complete birth registration forms so that they could collect information on births they encountered during immunization programmes and forward them to the nearest registration office for processing.

Mr Darko said the project would be extended to the other districts after the pilot stage, which would eventually lead to the production of a population register.

He said Plan Ghana, a Non-governmental Organisation, has already signed a memorandum of understanding with the Births and Deaths Registry to support the implementation of the Community Population Register Programme in the Central, Eastern and Upper West Regions. The programme involves the operation of a local level population register, which would facilitate the continuous recording and updating of information on the individual.

Under it, all regional and district offices of the Registry would be automated to establish an interface between them and other institutions like the District Assemblies, Social Security and National Insurance Trust and Electoral Commission in collating information.