Identification, Development : Civil Status Certificates Remains Key

Public authorities in Cameroon are resolutely determined to have a performing and highly modernised civil status system in the country that is not only important to government in terms of development planning but more important to the holders of the civil status certificates in the various aspects of their lives.
The birth certificate is certainly the first certificate in a human beings life that gives him the legal existence and identity. Access to other life processes such as education, marriage, work, citizenship, belonging to a certain community and nationality is based on the birth certificate. The marriage certificate on its part legalises the union between spouses and every other issue related to the family has the marriage certificate as the basic document. The birth and death certificates are determinant in knowing the population. In order to plan equitable sharing of wealth and sustainable development, government and its development partners need civil status statistics that will determine the various socio-political components of the population, as well as migration flows. 
It was with the ambition to get Cameroon’s civil status system more functional and modern that the Head of State, President Paul Biya signed decree No.2013/031 of 13 February 2013 on the organisation and functioning of the National Civil Status Registration Office (BUNEC). The State-owned structure with Alexandre Marie Yomo as the Director General, has as the main mission the collection, archiving and consolidation of data and documents related to civil status, ensures the supervision, control, regulation and assessment of the national civil status system. BUNEC now has functional Centres in all the 10 Regions of Cameroon. It has not only trained civil status registrars and secretaries who work in Main and Secondary Civil Status Registration Centres but equally furnished the centres with civil status registers. In fulfilment of one its missions, BUNEC has also been designing and implementing programmes for information and sensitisation of the population about laws and regulations governing the civil status...