Although Bangladesh has made progress in birth and death registration over the past years still it lags behind global and regional standards, experts said at a workshop on Monday.
The views came at a workshop for senior journalists on “Birth and Death Registration in Bangladesh: Progress, Challenges, and the Way Forward,” held at a hotel in Dhaka.
The event was organised by PROGGA (Knowledge for Progress) with support from the Global Health Advocacy Incubator (GHAI) where 26 senior journalists from print, television, and online media attended.
Currently, only 50 percent of births and 47 percent of deaths are registered in Bangladesh compared to the global averages of 77 percent and 74 percent.
Speakers stressed that amending the Birth and Death Registration Act, 2004 to make hospitals legally responsible for registering births and deaths is crucial to achieving this target.
They said reform would also help Bangladesh meet SDG target 16.9 which calls for legal identity for all, including birth registration.
Speakers said under the existing law, families are responsible for reporting births and deaths to registrars while the role of health sector remains optional.
Making hospital reporting mandatory could bring nearly 67 percent of children born in hospitals under registration automatically, they said.
Several countries in Asia and the Pacific have already achieved universal or near-universal registration by adopting this system.
They also underlined challenges to enforcement including low public awareness, shortage of manpower, technological gaps, complicated procedures, and weak coordination between agencies.
“It is imperative to amend the law urgently and legally bestow the responsibility of registration on health facilities to achieve universal birth and death registration by 2030,” said Muhammad Ruhul Quddus, Bangladesh Country Lead of GHAI.
Experts said birth and death registration is not only essential for safeguarding individual rights—such as citizenship, education, healthcare, inheritance, and voting—but also for national-level planning, budget allocation, public health, and governance.
Other discussants included Md. Nazrul Islam, Country Coordinator, Vital Strategies; Liton Haider, Convener, Anti-Tobacco Media Alliance (ATMA); Nadira Kiran, Co-Conveners, ATMA; and ABM Zubair, Executive Director, PROGGA.