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This country’s legal measures were reviewed by our legal staff in consultation with in-country lawyers and/or CRVS legal experts. All efforts were made to ensure the accuracy of the legal analysis, however, if you consider there to be any discrepancies or if there have been changes in the law of the country since our staff last updated the legal analysis, we welcome any additional information or insights. Please contact us via this form.
Civil Registration System
Ghana
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Ghana
Civil Registration System
Offices and Officers
Offices and Officers
Primary Civil Registration Offices
At what level of civil division are primary registration offices located?
District level
Recommended Practice based on International Guidelines
To ensure that civil registration services are accessible to the public, it is advisable that a primary registration office be maintained in locations that correspond to minor civil divisions of the country (such as municipalities, towns or districts). The jurisdictional boundaries of primary offices can be adjusted on the basis of population size, resource availability, accessibility, literacy rate and simplicity of registration. If civil registration services are available online (and the entire population has access to internet), the location of physical offices becomes less important.
The primary civil registration offices are at district level. Districts are defined in Section 48 of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act 2020 as being the area of authority of a District Assembly, a Municipal Assembly or a Metropolitan Assembly. In terms of the Local Governance Act 2016, a district must have a minimum population of 75,000 people, a municipality must have a minimum of 95,000 people, and a metropolis must have a minimum of 250,000 people. Assemblies for any of these local government units are encompassed within the term “District Assembly” for purposes of the Local Governance Act 2016. Districts (including municipalities and metropolises) are declared by the President on the advice of Ghana’s Electoral Commission. The Minister responsible for local government establishes a District Assembly, composed of a mixture of elected persons and persons appointed by the President, for each district, municipality and metropolis. Section 1(2) of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act 2020 requires district offices to be located in all the district capitals.
Does the law establish, or authorize the establishment of, secondary civil registration offices under the jurisdiction of the primary civil registration office?
Yes
Recommended Practice based on International Guidelines
Establishing secondary civil registration offices as sub-units of primary registration offices at locations with high occurrence of vital events, such as in hospitals or other health facilities, is a key contributor to facilitating higher rates of registration.
In some countries the law establishes the secondary registration offices at health facilities rather than providing authority to establish them.
The law establishing secondary registration offices or providing a power to establish them should include the process of appointing a responsible registrar and clearly define boundaries for the registration area. If a secondary registration site is established in a health facility, the law should state the functions empowered to the health facility registrar.
Section 1(2)(d) of the Registration of Births and Deaths Act 2020 provides for sub-district offices in each district. Registration Officers are appointed by each District Assembly, in consultation with the Registrar of Births and Deaths, to collect and collate information on births, fetal deaths and deaths in each sub-district. The Registrar designates a Registration Assistant for each zone in a district; this person has a duty to conduct outreach to individual households and to assist with the completion of forms on notification of births, fetal deaths and deaths.
Does the law authorize the local civil registrar to use mobile registration to reach remote or rural areas?
No
Recommended Practice based on International Guidelines
For those areas of the country where the population density is too low to justify setting up a permanent registration unit or where the accessibility to an existing registration unit is limited by terrain or distance, consideration should be given to establishing a mobile (by land, sea or air) registration unit. Such a unit would travel to predetermined places according to a fixed and well publicized schedule and remain in each such place long enough to collect and record the required registration data for the vital events that will have occurred since its last visit.
The Registration of Births and Deaths Act and its subsidiary enactments are silent on the topic of mobile registration. In practice, Ghana utilizes mobile registration units to target rural and hard-to-reach communities.
In addition, Ghana instituted an “m-Birth”initiative in 2015 which enabled computerized registration of infants below 12 months using mobile technology including tablets, phones, laptops and other mobile equipment. The information captured electronically is transferred directly to a central server at the National Office of the Births and Deaths Registry.
