My Name Campaign _a legal identity for every child in Cameroon

Make 2024 the year of birth registration in Cameroon, and make Cameroon a continental champion.

On the First Forum of Mayors of Cameroon, held on April 26th and 27th 2024 under the high patronage of the President of the Republic, UNICEF and its partners are launching a campaign for the country’s 374 mayors to accelerate birth registration for children.

This initiative is part of the campaign “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 — a campaign that UNICEF Cameroon has decided to amplify by inviting the country’s 374 Mayors to adopt concrete solutions to ensure that all children in Cameroon are registered, a right enshrined in the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and in the African Union’s Agenda 2063[1].

The ”My Name” campaign will run until November 2024 and conclude with a ceremony to be held on November 20th, on the 35th anniversary of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (ICRC), during which the ten municipalities with the best birth registration scores in terms of birth registration points will be rewarded.

Throughout the campaign, the progress made by the mayors will be monitored and posted 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 Cameroonian authorities, it is estimated that one in three children under the age of five living in Cameroon is deprived of a legal identity. In And in 2023, out of 566,680 births in health facilities, only 248,013 were registered (43.77 per cent). Furthermore, for the 2023–2024 school year, 1,569,660 children (30.4 per cent) enrolled in elementary school, have no birth certificate, according to MINEDUB’s Annuaire Statistique 2022/2023.

UNICEF’s challenge to mayors builds on pilot experiences in Cameroon and the region, which demonstrate that birth registration can be accelerated through interoperability with health and education services, decentralization and digitization.

Furthermore, an evaluation carried out by UNICEF in 2020 highlighted the central role of mayors in the birth registration system, in an environment marked by the decentralization of civil registry services and the strengthening of interoperability links between civil registry actors and other sectors, including health, education, social services and justice, which the campaign aims to amplify.

The launch of the UNICEF challenge to Cameroon’s mayors will be 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,” says Nadine Perrault, UNICEF Representative, “of our government partners — the Presidency of the Republic, who has honored the Forum with its High Patronage, MINDDEVEL, BUNEC, FEICOM, of mayors, within CVU, but also of technical and financial partners — notably the World Bank, and f the United Nations system, we can turn the situation around in just a few months and make Cameroon a champion country for citizenship on the continent.”

The universal birth registration challenge in Cameroon | UNICEF West and Central Africa