CAMEROON — Garoua 2, a municipality in northern Cameroon, was named Cameroon's Citizenship Champion on July 5, 2025, for its efforts to expand birth registration. This recognition was awarded through initiatives supported by UNICEF in partnership with the Cameroonian government.

The municipality achieved this through community outreach and a shift to digital civil status systems. Certificates were issued within minutes using the digital systems. Bih Marceline secured her child's birth certificate immediately without bureaucratic delays.

Under Cameroon's civil status law, every child has the right to a birth certificate. Parents are expected to register births within 90 days at no cost, with registration becoming more complex after this period. After one year, families must go through court procedures to register a birth. Child protection workers state that harmful norms persist in some rural communities, including beliefs that girls do not require formal documentation or education, but officials and community workers say traditional and religious leaders are increasingly being engaged in awareness campaigns to encourage earlier registration of births.

One resident, Aissatou Bouba, a mother of four living in Garoua 2, registered her youngest child in 2024 at a local health facility, where staff issued birth documents immediately after delivery. Bouba previously encountered issues with registration, stating, "One of my eldest children was sent home years ago from school because we didn't have his official papers."

According to Cameroon's Ministry of Basic Education, more than 1.5 million children, constituting about 30 percent of primary school pupils, are enrolled without birth certificates. Pupils without documentation are turned away from key assessments at the primary level. UNICEF estimates that 43.77 percent of the 560,000 births recorded in health facilities in 2023 were officially registered. UNICEF also estimates that 166 million children under the age of five remain unregistered globally.

UNICEF child protection specialist Alexis Mayang, based in Yaounde, said, "Children without documentation are harder to trace, monitor, or protect." He added that undocumented children "can be moved across borders with fewer checks." The first Mayors' Forum on Birth Registration took place in April 2024, where local authorities signed a charter committing to strengthen civil registration systems in their municipalities. Additionally, local chiefs in Tiko played a central role in documenting births in hard-to-reach areas before forwarding records to council offices.

UNICEF supported the rollout of the "My Name" campaign, which aims to identify and register children without legal documentation across Cameroon's 360 councils and 14 cities. Officials involved in the program state that more than 17,000 children have been registered since its launch.