Monrovia, Liberia – The National Identification Registry (NIR), in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and UNICEF, has officially launched the “National Identity Documents” initiative for children under six years.
A release from NIR on Monday, January 20, 2025, indicated that the program was inaugurated on Thursday, January 16, 2025, in Monrovia. The pilot phase targets Montserrado, Grand Bassa, and Gbarpolu Counties.
The UNICEF-funded program intends to enroll 5,000 children under six in these counties at no cost to the parents, with UNICEF paying for all ID card costs. The youngsters will obtain their national ID cards when the Ministry of Health verifies their vaccination records and provides free birth certificates. During the enrolling process, children will also receive vaccinations if needed.
Under the ARREST Agenda for Inclusive Development (AAID), the program, which has as its topic “Enhancing Visibility through National Identity Documents,” is a major step toward inclusive development, according to NIR Executive Director Andrew Peters, who spoke at the opening. In the coming weeks, pilot phase enrollment is scheduled to start.
Mr. Peters underlined that the initiative supports the government’s objective of creating a strong national biometric identity system to aid in resource allocation and policy planning. He said that it had previously been difficult to enroll children ages 0 to 5 because of the undeveloped ridges on their fingers, which made it challenging to collect their biometric information. According to the 2022 LISGIS census, this has left out almost 500,000 youngsters in this age bracket, or about 14% of the young population under 20.
To provide children under six individual identity numbers, the NIR changed its system in June 2023. Now known as “Enrollment at Birth,” the initiative aims to document people’s details from birth so that future generations may easily access their birth records.
According to DG Peters, discussions with UNICEF were triggered by the terrible economic climate, which made it hard for many parents to pay the $5 charge for the ID cards. UNICEF agreed to pay for the registration of the first 5,000 children as a result of the agreement.
Better planning and service access are fostered by this program, which guarantees that children under six may be individually recognized. Peters stated, “We want to leave a legacy.”
