The relevant Ugandan law creating the National Identification & Registration Authority (NIRA), among others, provides for every child’s birth to be registered. This is one of the many important ways through which key Uganda population characteristics can be established.
Yet ironically, the newly released final report for the 2024 population and housing census shows that this isn’t something many Ugandans are taking that seriously as yet, even when it’s a requirement to enable one’s child to access some of the key GoU services.
For instance, when processing a passport for a minor or even during travel visa processing, such documentation will be a mandatory requirement, as will be the case with any parent desiring to make a minor a shareholder in a formally registered company that has to be incorporated through URSB.
The census report shows that only 3 in every 10 children getting born in Uganda, as of May 2024, had their parents applying for and obtaining the birth notification document. And only 1 in every 10 such children had their parents go out to obtain for them a birth certificate whose vitality can only be equated to that of an adult Ugandan having a national ID.
This above-referenced process is of paramount importance because it’s the one through which a child’s birth is entered and recorded in the national civil registry of government, which NIRA is mandated to man.
Childbirth registration is also one of the ways through which a child’s Ugandan nationality can be demonstrated, ascertained, validated, and authenticated. Every child, once born, has a right to being given a name, which formally can only be evidenced and authenticated by the government through registration and entry into the civil registry.
In order to ensure that every newly born citizen of Uganda is promptly registered and enrolled in the civil registry, this vital registration service even ought to be given free of charge. And it should be done at birth or shortly after and as quickly as is practicable.
Broadly speaking, it can only be through childbirth registration that the GoU can, with certainty, establish the number of children in Uganda and proceed to engage in the appropriate resource allocation and planning for them in terms of access to quality education and health care, among other essential services.
And a comprehensive national civil registry, detailing child birth-related demographic data, can guide evidence-based allocation of government resources going into the provision of learning and health centers for those children.
Led by UBOS Governing Board Chairman Dr. Albert Byamugisha and the Executive Director Dr. Chris Mukiza, the final census report authors assert that Ugandan policymakers, elected leaders, researchers, and other stakeholders can leverage these findings to engage in meaningful and evidence-based advocacy that can push the government into coming up with appropriate program interventions aimed at mitigating the situation.
Only 11% of Uganda’s households had their childbirth registered with NIRA as is provided for under the relevant laws, while 32% merely had notifications. Kampala had the highest birth registration rate at 22%, while the statistical subregion of Teso had the lowest number of children with birth certificates at only 8%.
Other statistical subregions of Uganda fared as follows when it comes to having children with birth registration certificates: West Nile 9%, Madi 8%, Acholi 11%, Karamoja 9%, Lango 9%, Sebei 11%, Bugisu 10%, Bukedi 10%, Busoga 10%, Buganda 14%, Bunyoro 11%, Tooro 11%, Ankole 10.9%, Rwenzori 13%, and Kigezi 12%.
