Online Reporter
Bongani Ndlovu in BINGA
WHEN Mrs Rachel Moyo left South Africa and returned to Zimbabwe to acquire a birth certificate for her son, Ntando, she braced herself for a long, frustrating process.
She arrived at the Bubi District Registry in Inyathi with a torn birth certificate and a damaged national identity document of her own.
Ntando had been born across the border and had never been registered. Mrs Moyo expected the process to take days, if not weeks.
To Mrs Moyo’s surprise, it didn’t.
“My son was born in South Africa and does not have a birth certificate. When I came here, I thought it was going to be a difficult process, but the process was smooth. I got my birth certificate and national ID by midday, and four hours later, my son had his too,” she said.
Mrs Moyo is one of many beneficiaries of a new computerised civil registration exercise rolled out by the Civil Registry Department, in partnership with UNICEF and with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development Cooperation.
The programme is currently being implemented at the Bubi District Registry in Inyathi, Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo and Kariangwe sub-office in Binga. It enables digital issuance of birth certificates, national IDs and death certificates, making the process faster, more accurate and accessible.
Another beneficiary, Mr Edwin Mwinde, who works at a mine in Inyathi, but comes from Binga, said his employer had recently stopped accepting handwritten paper IDs and birth certificates.
“I was surprised to find that my records were already in the system. They issued me with a new birth certificate and ID at the office,” he said.
“At work, they were now rejecting my handwritten paper IDs, which I acquired in Binga. I was surprised that my records are in the system and they issued me with my birth certificate and ID at the office.”
At Mpilo Central Hospital in Bulawayo, the system is also integrated with maternity services, enabling immediate registration of newborns.
Mr Godwin Muzhingi and his wife, Margot Batch from Queens Park suburb, obtained a birth certificate for their daughter Mikaela soon after her birth.
“Birth certificates are essential for children to be enrolled in school. The process was smooth and everything went well. I encourage all parents to get their children’s documents as soon as possible,” said Ms Batch.
Bulawayo Provincial Registrar Mrs Jane Peters explained that the system is linked nationally, allowing citizens to retrieve duplicate documents from any registry office in the country.
“The moment the record is entered into the system, it’s there permanently. This means that if someone loses their document, they can go to any registry office across the country to get a replacement,” she said.
UNICEF Zimbabwe’s Chief of Child Protection, Dr Nyasha Mayanga said the computerisation of the civil registration process is not only efficient but also strategic for improving service delivery.
“As you can see, the maternity hospital is right there, and the civil registry sub-office is strategically located right here. It enhances the business process and parents are getting digitised copies much faster,” he said.
Dr Mayanga commended the Government for decentralising civil registry services to healthcare centres, saying the move is a “game changer” in efforts to increase birth registration rates.
“What the Government has done to decentralise civil registry services to health facilities is a very strategic game changer in terms of driving birth registration rates up.
“As you are aware, according to the Zimbabwe Demographic and Health Survey, the birth registration rate for zero to five nationally stands at 57 percent and with this computerisation, we are projecting an increase in that rate to even higher levels,” said Dr Mayanga.
He said the ultimate goal to ensure universal birth registration and decentralisation supported by computerisation, would help push those rates up.
