Gov’t recommits to fully digitalise civil status registration.

He was speaking in Yaounde Friday August 2. This was during a presser to announce the celebration of the 7th African Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Day, CRVSD. The 7th CRVSD will be celebrated on August 10.

It will be observed under the theme: “Strengthening links between civil registration and vital statistics and legal identity systems through digital transition for greater inclusion”.

Speaking to the press, Minister Obam mentioned that the theme, chosen by the African Union is timely as it aligns with government’s plan to modernise its civil status registration system.

He said the country started its digital transition a few years ago, with decentralised local authorities at the core of the fundamental evolution the Cameroonian society.

“Digitisation has become essential in the field of civil status, because of the countless benefits it brings. It strengthens methods used to collect and process civil status data, make procedures and methods more secure and simpler, as well as build bridges between civil status and the entire legal identity system, while reducing the scope for fraud,” Minister Obam stated.

He furthered that establishing a strong and structured link between civil status registers and statistics, and legal identity systems will enable African countries have up-to-date and reliable demographic data.

The data as the Minister pointed out, will be useful for developing policies that cut across civil registration and health systems for the benefit of the education sector, social protection, and election processes.

He said the data will also be important to facilitate cross-border recognition, allowing migrants, refugees, and people migrating from one country to another to access services, enjoy legal status, and fully participate in community life.

According to Minister Obam, the United Councils and Cities of Cameroon, UCCC recently received a whopping FCFA 1.5 billion from the President of the Republic for the civil status digitalisation project.

He said actions to concretise the project include setting up experimental digitised civil registration services, carrying out studies on the interoperability between civil registration and other legal identity systems, implementing a pilot phase of interoperability between civil status registration and the health system, as well as finalising a bill governing civil registration, that defines the conditions for computerising the system, and assigning Unique Personal Identification Numbers, UPIN to all citizens.

Minister Obam concluded by reiterating that a legal framework to answer to the challenges of digitalisation as far as civil status registration is concerned, is underway. He said the framework will scale up the digitisation of the civil status registration process in rural and urban communities.

This story was first published in The Guardian Post issue N0: 3190 of August 05, 2024