Handwritten birth certificates legit: Tanzania government

Constitution and Legal Affairs Minister Augustine Mahiga

Morogoro. Constitution and Legal Affairs Minister Augustine Mahiga yesterday warned institutions that reject handwritten birth certificates, saying the documents were as legal as their machine-printed counterparts.

Dr Mahiga was speaking during the launch of the decentralised birth registration system for Morogoro and Coastal regions which joined 13 other regions from Tanzania Mainland to roll out the system.

Implemented since 2013 through a partnership of the government, Tigo, Unicef with funding from the Canadian government, the decentralised birth registration system is said to have resulted in an overall increase of certification of under-fives in the regions where it has been implemented.

These include Singida, Dodoma, Mara, Simiyu, Lindi, Mtwara, Geita, Shinyanga, Mbeya, Songwe, Mwanza, Iringa and Njombe—from less than 10 per cent to over 80 per cent.

But, the challenge is that some institutions and organisations don’t accept the certificates, which are handwritten. 

“We cannot send computers to every registration centre across the country. It has to be understood that Tanzania is not the first country to issue handwrit-ten birth certificates. These certificates are government documents and they have the same value as the machine-printed ones,” said the minister, warning the institutions to stop discriminating against those with handwritten birth certificates. 

More than 560,000 under-five children are expected to receive birth certificates in the next two months free of charge, according to Ms Emmy Hudson, acting administrator general and chief executive officer of the Registration, Insolvency and Trusteeship Agency.

“Now parents can receive birth certificates from the designated health facilities or through the ward executive offices,” she said.

Some of the parents and guardians who attended the launching ceremony told The Citizen that they brought their children to get the birth certificate as they hope it will help them obtain various services provided by the government. 

Most of the parents don’t have birth certificates themselves and were not ready to see their loved ones go through the same ordeal as they did.

“I have been through a lot, missing a lot of opportunities along the way because I don’t have a birth certificate,” said a mother of two Victoria Simon, 25, who brought her two-year-old daughter Narsh Said to get the document. 

“I have learnt the lesson, I must right the wrong.”

Asha Shaaban, 18, brought her ten months old son Ikram Ahmada to get a birth certificate. She called the document a “lifeblood of everything,” adding: “Without it, you’re in trouble to get served by the government. I know this from the experience I don’t want my son to go through the same experience.”

According to UNICEF, the decentralised birth registration system has resulted in an overall increase of certification of under-fives in the regions where it has been implemented from less than 10 per cent to more than 80 per cent as well improving the certification rate for Tanzania Mainland from less than 13 per cent to more than 49 per cent in a little over six years. 


René Van Dongen, UNICEF acting country’s representative, said in a statement to the press: “Every child has the right to an identity. A birth certificate is a vital record that documents the birth of a child. The right to be registered immediately after birth, to have a name and acquire a nationality is every child’s right.”

He added that the simplified birth registration programme is reversing the current low level of birth registration which means that millions of children under-five who are “invisible” in the nation's records, will now be “visible.”

This is thanks to the decentralisation of the system where in the beginning the exercise could take place only place at the district headquarter town, now registration points are established at health facilities and at the community ward executive offices in line with the government’s policy of decentralisation through devolution.

According to UNICEF, parents from the two regions now will be able to easily access more than 990 registration points compared to only 15 available now, with close to 2,300 trained registration assistants on the ground to facilitate the exercise.