Samoa Bureau of Statistics aims to improve birth registration system

Samoa is working on improving its birth registration system through a partnership between Samoa Bureau of Statistics and the United Nations Development Programme.

An agreement was signed by the two organisations to create potential user-friendly solutions for better national digital registration systems.

SBS Chief Executive Officer, Aliimuamua Malaefono Taua said, “The Division of Births Deaths and Marriages still faces delays of birth registrations despite continuous training with village representatives and media advocacy programmes to encourage birth registration within three months after the child’s birth, as mandated in the Registration for Births, Deaths and Marriages Act 2002,"

According to Aliimuamua, they cannot record 100 per cent of births in Samoa which means that parents of newborns wait till the last minute to register their babies.

SBS is working with Accelerator Lab to co-create and co-design appropriate digital solutions to enhance the robustness of the Births Deaths and Marriages (B.D.M.) system and registration process.

UNDP Deputy Resident Representative Verena Linneweber said, “The Accelerator Labs are U.N.D.P.’s new way of working in development. Together with our core partners, the State of Qatar and the Federal Republic of Germany, 92 labs serving 120 countries are working with national and global partners to find radically new approaches that fit the complexity of current development challenges.”

"This partnership with S.B.S is a great example of this vision at work in the local context, in an area of need," Linneweber said.