More than five million children registered

Calling for a formal identity - write me down, count me in!

Thanks to Plan more than five million children around the world have been registered since the launch of our universal birth registration campaign in February 2005.

Children with birth certificates are less vulnerable to trafficking and can be protected from child labour and child marriage. They also have easier access to health care, education and civil rights.

Supporting the launch of Plan’s new ‘Count me in!’ report, which details our campaign's achievements to date, Archbishop Desmond Tutu joined our call for governments to give greater urgency to making universal birth registration a reality.

Archbishop Tutu said:
“Count me in! makes me very proud. As a result of Plan’s campaign another five million children around the world now have a formal identity.

“But much more remains to be done. Governments must take proper responsibility for registering children. An unregistered child loses out on many rights and we cannot allow this any longer.”

At present over half of all births in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa go unrecorded every year.

3,353 children have been registered in Cameroon alone since 2005

Major achievements

To date Plan’s universal birth registration campaign has achieved:

• policy and legislative changes in ten countries, with a further 21 countries working towards change
• reduced costs for registration, issuing of certificates and retrospective fees in 11 countries
• the recognition of Plan as a leading global authority on birth registration

Download the 'Count me in!' report (PDF, 1.6mb)

Read it in French (PDF, 1mb)
Read it in Spanish (PDF, 2mb)  

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