The Births and Deaths Registry in 2022 registered 93% of births and 38% of deaths attributable to many factors including enhanced staff capacity through peer learning, harmonised/digitised system for registration and provision of logistics.
The Senior Presidential Advisor, Yaw Osafo-Maafo, who said this last Friday at the launch of the Maternal and Child Health Record Book, also attributed the feat to the involvement of religious and faith-based organisations, enactment of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 2020 (Act 1027), and upgrade of the official website for citizens to access the services of Birth and Death Registration.
The Maternal and Child Health Record Book is a home-based health record for mothers, newborns and children. It contains essential information to promote and maintain the health of mothers, and their families and notification of births and foetal deaths to ensure such data is captured for national planning and socio-economic development.
Mr Osafo-Maafo indicated that under the implementation of the Public Sector Reforms for Results Project (PSRRP) and the enforcement of the new Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 2020 (Act 1027), certain key areas of the service delivery of the Births and Deaths Registry had been reviewed and revised in line with the Project Development Objective (PDO) of the PSRRP and the Act.
That, he said, has led to the deepening of collaboration between the Births and Deaths Registry and the Ghana Health Service in improving the notification of births and deaths and making it more inclusive.
He expressed the hope that the Births and Deaths Registry would follow up to ensure that every birth and foetal death was registered across the country, adding that if this is meticulously followed, Ghana will achieve universal coverage for birth registration to meet Sustainable Development Goal 16.9.
The Acting Registrar of Births and Deaths, Henrietta Lamptey, said through the support of the World Bank, the Registry has developed sensitisation materials to enable the public to appreciate the critical role it plays in births and deaths registration, particularly foetal deaths.
She said one of the goals of the Registry was to ensure inclusiveness, where every child regardless of the location in Ghana, was legally registered immediately after birth. It was also to simplify and streamline the registration process for birth certificates to be issued timely so that newborns can get a Ghana National Identification Number at birth.
Edem Agblevor, ISD
