As a stakeholder in the UN agenda on legal identity, Cameroon was privileged to present the road covered in that domain by Alexandre Marie Yomo during a side event of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly.
The struggle to have every birth and death recorded in Cameroon is the daunting task of the civil registry office BUNEC. Several awareness campaigns and seminars have been organized to make Cameroonians understand the importance of owning civil registry documents. With the efforts put in by councils to record and issue birth certificates, the gap is still big and BUNEC has been relentless in bridging it. The effort is sure making a difference, reason why Cameroon alongside Cambodia were singled out of the lot to share their experience as far as the legal identity domain is concerned. On hand to share the Cameroonian experience on the implementation of legal identity for all was Alexandre Marie Yomo, BUNEC’s GM, while participation in the panel discussion was coordinated by Mr. Ebongue Makole Fred, Secretary General of the Ministry of Decentralisation and Local Development.
Also, the Cameroonian delegation was received on the sidelines by senior officials of some partner institutions such as UNICEF and. Betsy Muller, Manager of Health Programmes at Vital Strategies of Bloomberg Philanthropies. These partners appreciated the multifaceted efforts made by Cameroon for the implementation of the United Nations Agenda on Legal Identity for All. They also pledged to accompany Cameroon in the pursuit of modernising its civil status and identity management system.
The Legal identity agenda promotes a holistic and integrated approach to civil registration and vital statistics systems and identity management. This is being implemented with the support of various partners including UN agencies (UNICEF, UNECA, WHO) and NGOs such as Vital Strategies and Bloomberg Philanthropies. In this regard, Cameroon is one of the 13 countries leading this initiative and as such, was chosen along with Cambodia to share its experience in the implementation of this UN Agenda during the side events of the 77th session of the UN General Assembly composed of representatives of diplomatic missions present in New York and those of development partners.
Claudette CHIN
