1. ICT supported birth registration
in Kwale, Kenya
Enhancing the Community-led
decentralized model for birth
registration
Updated 1/10/11
Plan Kenya / Plan Finland
Mika.Valitalo@plan.fi

2. Focal problem: only 4 out of 10
children are registered
• Why?
• Poor accessibility of government staff and offices
– due to a) distances b) unvailable chiefs c) fear of gov. representatives d) bribes and corruption
• Slow processing of birth notifications
– due to a) shortages of registration stationary (forms) b) the transportation to DCRO is manual c) no information
channel to notify when possible to apply for the certificate and when to fetch it.
• Slow processing of birth certificates
– due to a) low human resources at DCRO compared to amount of (manual) work b) the payment process is too
centralized c) the demand for the parents to travel to DCRO
• Disjoint administratives structures
– due to a) the delink between birth notification and certificate process b) manual records management c) no means to
cross checking the data during verification.
• Lack of incentives for parents to register their children
– due to a) low awareness on birth registration benefits b) disconnect between the government departments dealing with
registration of persons c) no perceived need for certificates before secondary school d) child marriage is a hinderance
(those practising it do not want to contact officials).
• High costs
– due to a) distance to DCRO b) the cost of the certificate c) movement between government offices (e.g. one needs to
visit a separate office for payment in addition DCRO).
• Manual analysis and storage of data
– leading to poor tracking of records and difficulties to utilize data for e.g. planning and statistics.

3. The current birth notification and registration
process – an overview
4. In the DCRO the nofitication vefiried, approved and
6. Processing the applications for filed. In case of missing/incorrect information the
certificates is manual and time- notification is returned to the community.
consuming task in the DCRO,
thus delaying the services for
parents.
up to 100 km 3. Chief verifies the notifications
and takes them to District Civil
0-1 km
Registration Office (DCRO) approx.
monthly.
Mobile teams This takes time and money
1-10 km
2. An informant (e.g.
parent, relative,
community health
workers etc.) makes
notification of birth to
5. When the notification process the CBO (Community
has been completed, the parents Based
can apply for the certificate. For Organisation) or to the
this they need to travel all the Chief.
way to DCRO, usually twice (for 1. Mother gives birth to a child
application and later to get the
certificate once it has been
processsed.)

4. In Kenya, communities are empowered to report births as the system is
decentralized to allow registration and record keeping at (community and) district level. Community Based
Organization can also have mobile teams that visit remote parts of the community
and receive birth notifications to be sent forward.
At the moment mobile teams rely on paper forms.

5. Kwale’s District Civil Registration Office (DCRO) manages and archives
all the birth notification as well as produces birth certificates. The population in the district area is estimated 590,000.
Kwale district is has a border with Tanzania which creates challenges to registration system. For example it
can be difficult to know if a baby is actually Kenyan or (s)he is brought over the border in order to
obtain the Kenyan citizenship.

6. Although the DCRO has two
computers running a database
on Microsoft Access, all the
records are still handled and
stored manually. Due to low
staffing and problems with the
database, old records have
not been digitized.
Processing birth notifications
and producing birth
certificates takes a lot of time
and manual work.

7. Birth notification that is done at the community level by CBO or Chief. Currently these
notifications are taken by the Chief to the DCRO every month. Notification does not
yet mean that the child would get a certificate. For that parents need separately to apply
and pay.

8. By law, the birth certificates need to be produced in the district
level. Travelling to DCRO can be an expensive and long journey hindering parents
to apply for the cerfiticate. The cerfiticate itself costs approx. 60 Kenyan shillings,
which is a lot of money for many.

9. Community meeting on birth registration. Enhancing the birth registration
process has been a community initiated and owned process supported by Plan Kenya.
Stakeholders in the ICT supported UBR project:
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Finland: funding
Plan Kenya: implementation with local partners
Nokia: support and contribution in utilizing mobile technology
Plan Finland: ICT and programmatic support & stakeholder coordination

10. Raising awareness event organised by district officials and Plan
Hundreds of birth registrations were delivered to parents during the

11. Community volunteer Ali collecting birth notifications with a
mobile device and software (Nokia Data Gathering) .

12. The birth notification form has been transferred to mobile version. Even
if the forms have ran out, notifications can still be collected.

13. Five participating community based organisations are also using com
to gather, store, analyse, visualise and send the data forward.

14. Flow of birth notification/registration information
from community to district to country level.
Nairobi
Kwale district office
District Civil
Registration Office
using Plan/Raccuda
developed software to
handle notifications
National Civil from both mobiles and
Registration System computers.
(NCRS) by Goverment
of Kenya / Civil
Registration
Department Kimadzo location
Community Based
Community Based
Organisations using
Organisations using
KCRS
Nokia Data Gathering
(NDG)