The Acting Registrar of the Births and Deaths Registry, Henrietta Lamptey, has lamented Ghana’s low rate of civil registrations and vital statistics.
She said although Ghana had a long history of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS), the level of civil registration of vital events and the quality of the data produced remained unacceptably low.
She said the situation was much dire in the area of death registration.
Mrs Lamptey was speaking at a workshop for institutions whose operations border around the production of CRVS.
The Registrar said she was therefore hopeful that through the workshop, participants would be equipped with the requisite knowledge and skills to effectively improve the process of registering vital events.
This, she said would help the country achieve the United Nations sustainable development goal target 16.9.
Workshop
The four days’ workshop, which was organised by the Births and Deaths Registry in collaboration with the Ghana Statistical Service, formed part of activities of the CRVS system improvement framework project in Ghana.
Sponsored by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), the workshop brought together participants from the Ghana Police Service, National Identification Authority, Judicial Service, the Ghana Health Service, National Road Safety Authority, Office of the Attorney General’s Department, and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Others were the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, Pathology department of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Registrar General’s Department and other individuals who have expertise in the CRVS system in Ghana.
Over the course of the four-day training workshop, Participants were taken through various topics that were aimed at improving their understanding of the business process models of CRVS. They were admonished to see CRVS as business and treat it as such by becoming more client centered.
The participants were then split into task teams and challenged to develop solutions to a wide array of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics themes like marriages, divorce, birth registration and death registration among others
Improving CRVS.
The Chief of the Demographic and Social Statistics Section at the African Centre for Statistics of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), Dr William Muhwava, said UNECA was committed to help improve the country’s CRVS system.
He commended the institutions and agencies for the work they have done so far.
Dr. Muhwava admonished participants to own the CRVS system and drive it.
He was of the view that in this time of donor fatigue, there was the need for Ghana to be more proactive in ensure the country gets things right this time.
A consultant for the initiative, Dr Felicia Dake, for her part, highlighted that the workshop had brought together different stakeholders in the CRVS value chain to critically examine the current status of the CRVS system and to develop a sustainable strategy to improve and run the system effectively and efficiently.