My name, my identity, my right

 On the occasion of the First Forum of Mayors of Cameroon under the High Patronage of the President of the Republic, held on 26 and 27 April 2024, UNICEF and its partners are launching a campaign to get the country's 374 mayors to speed up birth registration.

This initiative is part of the campaign entitled My Name, My Identity, My Right, launched by UNICEF Country Offices in West and Central Africa on the occasion of the African Cup of Nations held in Côte d'Ivoire last January and February; UNICEF Cameroon has decided to extend this campaign by inviting the country's 374 mayors to adopt concrete solutions to ensure that all children in Cameroon are registered, a fundamental right enshrined in the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and in the African Union's Agenda 2063.

The My Name campaign will run until April 2025 and will conclude with a ceremony in April 2025,  during which the ten municipalities with the best scores in terms of birth registration points opened in health facilities will be honoured.

Throughout the campaign, the progress made by the Mayors will be monitored and published on a web page dedicated to the campaign: The Universal Birth Registration Challenge in Cameroon | UNICEF West and Central Africa

‘Today, despite the efforts made by the country's authorities, it is estimated that one in three children under the age of five living in Cameroon is deprived of a legal identity1,’ explains Nadine Perrault, UNICEF Representative in Cameroon.  

And in 2023, out of 566,680 births in health facilities, only 248,013 (43.77%) were registered. Furthermore, for the 2023-2024 school year, 1,569,660 children, or 30.4% of pupils enrolled in primary schools, do not have a birth certificate, according to MINEDUB's Annuaire Statistique 2022/2023.  

UNICEF's challenge to mayors is based on pilot experiments carried out in Cameroon and the region, which show that birth registration can be speeded up by making civil registry services more accessible and closer to health posts, and by linking child registration to vaccination activities through interoperability with health and education services, decentralisation and digitisation.

‘Furthermore, an evaluation carried out by UNICEF and its partners in 2022 highlighted the central role of mayors in the birth registration system, in an environment marked by the decentralisation of civil registry services and the strengthening of interoperability links between civil registry actors and other sectors, including health, education, social services and justice’, says Nadine Perrault, highlighting the efforts made by the Cameroonian authorities, which the campaign aims to amplify.  

The launch of the UNICEF challenge to Cameroon's mayors was attended by His Majesty Nabil Mbombo Njoya, Sultan, King of the Bamouns and UNICEF Champion, who assured the mayors of his support.

Thanks to the massive commitment of our ambassadors and champions,’ emphasised Nadine Perrault, “our government partners - the Presidency of the Republic, which has honoured the Forum with its high patronage, MINDDEVEL, BUNEC, FEICOM, the mayors, within the CVUC, but also our technical and financial partners - in particular the World Bank, and the United Nations system, we can change the situation in just a few months and make Cameroon a champion country for citizenship on the continent”.