By Emmanuel Ogbodo<\/p>\n
At a media dialogue in Lagos, the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF) emphasised the urgent need for adopting digital birth registration in Nigeria to secure every child’s right to an identity. Celine Lafoucriere, Chief of UNICEF\u2019s Field Office for South-West Nigeria, highlighted the initiative’s importance during the two-day event.<\/p>\n
The dialogue, organised in partnership with the Lagos State Ministry of Youth and Social Development and the National Population Commission (NPC), aimed to drive the implementation of e-birth registration across South-West Nigeria. Themed \u201cA Media Dialogue to Drive E-Birth Registration in South-West Nigeria,\u201d the event gathered key stakeholders to discuss strategies for enhancing birth registration systems, as reported by the News Agency of Nigeria.<\/p>\n
\u201cE-birth registration is crucial for national planning and development,\u201d Lafoucriere stated. \u201cIt guarantees that each child is recognized and accounted for, which is essential for effective governance and resource allocation.\u201d She emphasised that comprehensive digital registration would be transformative for Nigeria, providing accurate statistics fundamental for effective planning and policy-making. \u201cWithout adequate statistics, the government cannot plan effectively for children,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Denis Onoise, UNICEF Child Protection Specialist, presented the NPC\u2019s ambitious targets: registering over nine million children under five and four million children under one year. He stressed the importance of collaborating with primary health centres to meet these goals and noted a disparity in birth registration rates, with rural areas reporting a higher rate (78.9%) compared to urban areas (44.8%). Integrating birth registration with the National Identification Number (NIN), he suggested, could significantly improve data accuracy and coverage.<\/p>\n
Onoise highlighted that Nigeria has established 4,000 registration centres across its 774 local government areas to facilitate this process. He explained that integrating birth registration with the NIN would streamline data collection and ensure every child\u2019s identity is accurately recorded.<\/p>\n
Bamidele Sadiku, NPC\u2019s Lagos State Director, echoed these sentiments, stressing that the e-birth registration platform would enhance the quality of life for Nigerians by preventing duplicate registrations of births and deaths. Sadiku revealed plans to collaborate with the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to link birth registrations with NIN, creating a unified and reliable database. \u201cLinking e-birth registration with NIN will resolve issues of multiple registrations and provide a unique identity for every child born in Nigeria,\u201d Sadiku explained. He called on the media to support this initiative, emphasising the crucial role of public awareness in its success.<\/p>\n
Toyin Oke, Permanent Secretary of the Lagos Ministry of Youth and Social Development, reiterated the state government\u2019s commitment to securing children\u2019s futures through e-birth registration. Represented by Adeola Olabisi, Director of Public Finance, Oke acknowledged the media\u2019s vital role in promoting the initiative and ensuring its widespread adoption.<\/p>\n
UNICEF\u2019s advocacy for digital birth registration aims to create a robust and comprehensive system that supports national planning, enhances child rights, and ensures that every Nigerian child is counted and recognized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Emmanuel Ogbodo At a media dialogue in Lagos, the United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF) emphasised the urgent need for adopting digital birth registration in Nigeria to secure every child’s right to an identity. Celine Lafoucriere, Chief of UNICEF\u2019s Field Office for South-West Nigeria, highlighted the initiative’s importance during the two-day event. The dialogue, organised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39077"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39080,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39077\/revisions\/39080"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}