Project profile — Scaling-up Birth Registration Using Innovative Technology

• Tanzania (100.00%)

• Population policy and administrative management:
Population policy and administrative management (13010) (18.35%)
Population statistics and data (13096) (65.32%)
• Other Social Infrastructure And Services: Statistical capacity building (16062) (16.33%)

• Children's issues (principal objective)
• Desertification (not targeted)
• Indigenous Issues (not targeted)
• Environmental sustainability (cross-cutting) (not targeted)
• Biodiversity (not targeted)
• Participatory development and good governance (not targeted)
• Climate change mitigation (not targeted)
• Urban issues (not targeted)
• Gender equality (significant objective)
• Youth Issues (not targeted)
• ICT as a tool for development (significant objective)
• Trade development (not targeted)
• Disability (not targeted)
• Climate Change Adaptation (not targeted)

This project aims to register and issue birth certificates to 3.5 million girls and boys under the age of five (including 90% of newborns and 70% of previously unregistered children) in ten regions of mainland Tanzania. Accurate birth registration allows the Government of Tanzania to effectively and efficiently plan for health, education, and child protection services and ensure that children have access to these services. The project supports the scaling up of an innovative birth registration system, which was developed by Tanzania’s birth registration agency in partnership with Tigo (a mobile service provider). The system uses innovative technology that quickly uploads records of all birth registrations to a centralized system through text messages sent from mobile phones. This allows for real-time monitoring of birth registrations at national, regional and local levels and greatly simplifies the registration process. Some project activities include: (1) training local government registration agents, specifically health workers and Ward Executive Officers; (2) entering into a public-private partnership with key mobile service providers operating in the ten regions; (3) conducting public awareness campaigns to support the implementation of the new birth registration system in each region; (4) assisting the Government of Tanzania to finalize the new Birth and Death Registration law; (5) coordinating an inter-ministerial committee on civil registration and vital statistics; and (6) training a core team of national facilitators to scale up the new birth registration system across mainland Tanzania.

The expected intermediate outcomes for this project include: (1) increased under-five birth registration and certification in mainland Tanzania; and (2) strengthened government management and oversight systems for birth registration.

Results achieved as of March 2023 include: (1) 1,131,298 children under five registered in 23 of the 26 regions, for a total of 8.8 million children registered since project inception; (2) 16295 (9448 F/6847 M) registration officers across 23/26 regions trained and delivering the gender-responsive simplified birth registration system; (3) 542 registration centers established (336 at health facilities and 206 at ward offices) providing more options for parents to register their children; (4) 25 birth registration outreach programmes targeting vulnerable women were conducted in the five regions; and (5) 100% of district councils were reached with public awareness campaigns before the start of the Under-Five Birth Registration (U5BR) campaign, through different medias, mosques, churches, public announcements and using ten-cells leaders.

• Proactive disclosure