Mass registration targets 8.4m children
Minister of Homeland Security Jean Sendeza says government will roll out a mass child registration exercise targeting 8.4 million children to give them legal identity.
Speaking yesterday in Lilongwe when the National Registration Bureau (NRB) held a stakeholders consultation meeting for the exercise, the minister said the exercise will start in October and end in 2023.
Sendeza said children will be issued with a unique national identification number and a birth certificate upon registration.
She said: “To date, about 10 263 692 Malawians have been registered for the national identification [ID] card.
“The mass child registration we are talking about here is to cover the remaining half of the population who are below the age of 16 and did not register for the national IDs.”
Sendeza said registration will help provide legal identity that government and other development partners can use in policy and development planning.
The identity number will be used to link and digitise in the health services, education, social welfare services and other services.
During the same event, Deputy Minister of Health Enock Phale said registration will further help promote efficiency in service delivery and ease planning activities.
“The mass registration will also help in ensuring that children that have not reached the age of 18 are not to be part of voters in elections,” he said.
Malawi Electoral Commission chairperson Chifundo Kachale said the mass child registration will help the electoral body in managing the voter registration, elections but also protecting democracy.
United Nations resident coordinator Maria Do Valle Ribeiro said the UN will support the initiative and called on other stakeholders to support the exercise so that it is successful.
The exercise will be conducted in six phases and the first phase will pilot in Mwanza, Lilongwe Rural East and Karonga.
Malawi rolled out registration of citizens in 2017. It covered people aged 16 years above and above, and 10 million people were registered during the exercise.
