116 million under-five-year-olds in Africa do not have birth certificates, a new statistical update on birth registration has revealed.
The joint update, published by UNICEF and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), puts the number of unregistered children under-5 in Africa around 91 million.
The update was launched on Monday at the Experts Group Meeting of the 6th Conference of African Ministers Responsible for Civil Registration in Addis Ababa.
The latest statistical update on birth registration in Africa revealed that nearly half of all African children under-five are unregistered but 20 countries are on track to register the births of all children by 2030 while another 23 countries in the continent should accelerate progress.
According to the latest statistical update the birth registration has been uneven across the continent and five countries do not have even data.
It also said four in 10 unregistered under- five children are in eastern Africa.
Unless these countries substantially accelerate their progress, Africa as a continent may significantly miss Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 16.9 by 2030, said the UN’s updated report.
The status of civil registration in the continent is good but has a lot of weaknesses because lot registrations are paper based, Oliver Chinganya, Director of African Center for Statistics of the UNECA told APA in an interview.
“65 percent of the data that comes from civil registration informs the SDGs which is critical and that if we are not able to have that information on civil registration, we are likely not able to deliver,” Chinganya said.
The poorest children in Africa continue to lag behind with the gap in birth registration between the richest and the poorest children widening over two decades, most notably in central Africa, said the UN’s Statistical Update.
MG/as/APA