BIRTH & DEATH

The Births and Deaths Registry was established by Act 301 of 1965, now replaced by Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 2020 (Act1027), within the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development to handle and develop the births and deaths registration system in Ghana. Its core mandate is to provide accurate, timely and reliable information on all births and deaths accruing within Ghana, through their registration and certification for socio-economic development of the country.

A well-functioning births and deaths registration regime are increasingly seen as fundamental to good governance and sound national administrative systems because they enable greater political participation, underpin accountability, and enable public service delivery by provision of a platform for national population databases, national identity programmes, and e-governance.

A Universal and responsive births and deaths registration system have a crucial part to play in achievement of inclusive, equitable, and people-centered development, prevention of statelessness, improvement of humanitarian planning, and aiding of response to disasters. Reliable and timely vital statistics are important for national authorities to plan, and are increasingly seen as investments that yield high-quality data to underpin effective public policy.

Delivering an efficient births and deaths registration system requires that current structures, internal management functions, processes and procedures for registering both births and deaths events are reformed and aligned with international standards and best practices.

Currently the government is putting in place measures to drive domestic revenue mobilization to push the country beyond Aid. This requires the combination of the following: the issuance of the national identification card, the national digital property addressing system and the use of tax identification numbers (TINs) to access key services. It is instructive to note that the surest way of broadening the tax base and reducing the tax burden is to have in place a robust civil registration system that would generate credible and reliable population data. Such a system will eventually ensure effective policy formulation and development planning that will lead to efficient service delivery for the population and also serve as a feeder of civil identification system to identify each individual in the country irrespective of nationality