The Vice President, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has recently launched the Ghana Card at Birth initiative which aims to collect data on newborns and to ensure a continuous data update on Ghana’s demography as the child registered at birth grows.
The initiative seemingly provides a solution to the inability of the National Identification Authority (NIA) to register a wide spectrum of Ghanaians over a short period. Currently, the NIA’s challenge is its inability to have a holistic and comprehensive registration of Ghanaians on its Ghana Card scheme as proven by the recent issue the Electoral Commission had with members of the IPAC on its decision to use the Ghana Card as the sole CI for voter registration.
“With a population exceeding 30 million and an annual birth rate of approximately 30 per 1,000 people, Ghana’s demographic landscape underscores the urgent need for a streamlined process for birth registration and identification issuance”.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
Undoubtedly, the Ghana Card at Birth initiative has the potential to gradually reduce issues of overcrowding at registration centers as children registered at birth will not have to queue to register at the NIA for essential documents.
Also, the initiative will enhance the easy integration of children into other identification systems such as voter registration, driver’s license, and others. Children registered on the scheme will be easily integrated into other systems as and when the need arises without much hassle as there will be little or no need for identity confirmation which is usually the case in Ghana.
Certainly, the initiative also has the potential to provide a suitable solution to the country’s demographic data collection and management challenges. With the information the government is likely to have access to through this platform, it will be easy to determine mortality rate, population growth, and others which will aid the government in policy making and implementation and also save the cost of regular population census.
Accordingly, the initiative also has the potential to reduce the problems of identity fraud and provide certainty in age and citizenship issues as the child is mechanized into the system from birth. In all, the initiative could potentially bring some sort of credibility to data collection and citizenship and identity validation.
Feasibility Of Initiative
Notwithstanding the potential of the initiative to solve major demographic and identification problems confronted by the NIA, it is only practical to question the initiative’s feasibility. Though the initiative may look good on paper, its goal can only be realized through its implementation.
“The data of the birth details and registration number received from the Births and Deaths registry is then sent from the district health information system e-tracker to the National Identification Authority… A text message is then sent to the mother to visit the nearest NIA or Births and Deaths registry office to complete the process and get the relevant birth certificate”.
Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia
Introducing the initiative does not necessarily do away with the excess red tape involved in attaining identification in Ghana. While the application process may be digital, completing the process will be filled with rigid procedures as is the case in passport application. The initiative only changes the nature of the crowd at NIA registration premises from adults to mothers with babies; given the number of new births registered daily.
Meanwhile, with the current decentralization problems the NIA is grappling with, the NIA does not have the right measures in place to see to the materialization of the initiative. The NIA currently operates in regional and district offices and citizens from rural areas far from these offices will be burdened financially with the cost of transportation and those who cannot afford will be unable to register which only means that the problem the initiative seeks to solve remains.
On the other hand, hospitals and healthcare centers in rural areas, unlike the ones in urban areas, do not have the requred technology to engage in the implementation of the initiative. While the initiative is great, the government failed to take into consideration the availability of resources and know how to enable its implementation.
Conclusively, the initiative has not detailed the procedure for an upgrade of information once these newborns attain an age that requires them to. With Ghana’s current deprived digital proficiency and general lack of expertise to implement policies, it is highly unlikely that the Ghana Card at Birth project undertaken by the government can deliver its utmost objective if these challenges are not addressed.
