Birth registration: Vital statistics

摘要

"To make people count, we first need to be able to count people", said the late WHO Director-General Lee Jong-wook in an address to WHO staff a decade ago. He was referring to the sobering fact that most people in Africa and Asia were born and died without leaving a trace in any legal record or official statistic. The Dec 11 release of the UNICEF report, Every Child's Birth Right: Inequities and Trends in Birth Registration, provides a timely update-and paints a largely depressing picture-of birth registration rates, Especially in countries most affected by weak health systems and conflict. The report estimates that in 2012, around 230 million children younger than 5 years-around one in three-did not have their births registered. The worst-performing country statistics speak for themselves: a registration rate of just 3% in Somalia, 7% in Ethiopia, 16% in Chad andTanzania, and 27% in Pakistan.