Experts discuss National IDs progress

As the Malawi’s national registration and identification exercise is underway, local and International experts have been brainstorming on how best Malawi can implement the initiative.

Malawi remains the only country in the SADC region without national identity cards for its citizens a development that has led to uncontrollable influx of illegal citizens.

The experts discussed the matter at a meeting held in Kasungu organized by the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and the United States Agency for International Development.

Strategic Information Officer for the United States Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Denise Giles said the US would want to help the country to have a standard civil registration and vital statistics system which would help for planning purposes.

“The United states government identified the need in Malawi’s civil registration system so we would want to review how we can help the country to come up with vital statistics systems,” said Giles.

She said such data is vital in as far as development is concerned.

“A well established civil registration system would help to make proper population projections and also act as a guide in fighting diseases.”

Deputy Director for the National Registration Bureau, Sophie Kang’oma told Zodiak Online that the meeting will help Malawi to learn on how other countries are doing on national registration.

“The coming in of the US will help to build our capacity towards the implementation of the national registration Process,” said Kang’ona.

Other participants included representatives from the academia, Ministry of Health officials, Non Governmental Organizations, among others.