President William Ruto says his government will achieve 100 percent registration of births and deaths by 2026.
Ruto, who was speaking during the opening of ID4Africa on Wednesday, May 24 in Nairobi, said that the government has come up with a new digital identification system that will see 100 per cent registration in less than three years.
A report by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) this year shows that the government has recorded 80.6 per cent registration of births and 47.6 per cent on deaths in 2022.
This is a decrease from 2021 where 83.2 percent and 52.3 percent births and deaths were registered respectively.
But Ruto believes the new digital system will smoothen the process of birth registration as a unique personal identification number will be assigned at birth.
"We have embarked on a national programme to digitally automate public service provision to enable Kenyans access government services from their devices. This is because efficiency in the provision of public services depends on the capacity to establish the identity of people quickly and accurately," Ruto said.
"As we embark on the journey to be a fully-fledged digital economy, we have set measures that will enable us to transition from unique identity registration into a fully functional and secure national digital identity management system. These measures will ensure 100 percent registration of births and deaths by 2026," he added.
According to the president, the new identification system will cut down transaction costs, eliminate unnecessary bureaucracy, increase transparency in government and also boost his plan to digitise all government services by the end of 2023.
Already, the president says, the government has digitised 5,000 services, up from 320 in the last year.
The government has also put up measures to safeguard information on all registered persons through data privacy and management.
This will place Kenya among the first countries in Africa to establish a policy framework for data protection, which includes comprehensive legislation and regulations to safeguard privacy and personal data.
