Practice, Challenges And Opportunities Of Civil Registration In Case Of Birth Registration: The Case Of Ambo Town Civil Registration Agency, Ambo Ethiopia

Abstract

Birth registration is a fundamental right for every child, as it provides legal identity, protection, and access to essential services. However, in many developing countries, including Ethiopia, a significant number of children go unregistered. The purpose of this study is to assess the practice, challenges, and opportunities of civil registration in the case of child birth registration in Ambo Town, Oromiya Region, Ethiopia. The study employed a descriptive survey design and mixed research approaches. Data were collected from 154 caregivers from three kebeles and the health office sectors of Ambo Town. In the selection of the sample population, purposive and random techniques were used. The researcher also used a simple random sampling technique for caregivers. Interviews and FGD were prepared. The findings of the study showed that about 67% of the sample respondents had ever registered and certified, and the rest were not practicing birth registration. This is because of a lack of awareness and collaboration among stakeholders in different sectors in the study area. The findings also showed that the challenges of timely birth registration stem from the fact that the importance of birth registration is not well understood by society and stakeholders. Administrative challenges, socio-cultural characteristics, registration costs, and other additional costs were the other challenges of universal birth registration in the study area. However, there are opportunities missed or ineffectively implemented for strengthening the schemes. These include the health system, the decentralized structure of civil registration, the involvement of external NGOs, and the era of digitalization as opportunities to improve the registration rate in the study area. As a result, it is recommended that there be continuous coordination and cooperation with stakeholders and that training be provided so that they can properly discharge their responsibilities, as vital event registration plays a role in different sectors. And the flexibility of the law to allow one of the families to register his or her baby and the prerequisites of identity documents for registration. In addition, the current digitalization registration system is satisfactory in service provision due to its ability to reduce wastage of time and cumbersome procedures; hence, the Ambo civil registration office should work cooperatively with the Oromia Civil Registration Agency to transform the current registration challenges in Ambo.