The failure to register millions of children at birth could have a direct impact on government planning and funding for schools, healthcare and social protection, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has warned.
Chief of UNICEF Lagos Field Office, Celine Lafoucriere, disclosed this at a two-day Birth Registration Media Dialogue held on Tuesday, August 11, 2026, at Patron Hotel, Sangotedo, Lagos State.
Lafoucriere said that about 3.5 million children under the age of one across Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti and Edo states are currently not registered at birth.
According to her, the figure represents children who are effectively invisible in the civil registration system and whose absence from official records could affect the government’s ability to plan and finance basic services.
“About 3.5 million children under the age of one are not registered currently,” she said, explaining that children without birth registration could remain unaccounted for when governments plan for education, healthcare and social protection.
She stressed that the implication goes beyond the absence of a birth certificate, adding “If 3.5 million children are still not registered, they will go unnoticed, and there will be no government funding to support them simply because they are invisible.”
For local governments and other levels of government responsible for delivering basic services, population data is fundamental to planning.
When authorities determine how many classrooms, teachers, primary healthcare facilities, medicines or other services are required, they need reliable information about the number and location of children and families they are expected to serve.
Unregistered children may therefore create gaps between the population that exists on the ground and the population reflected in official planning records.
A community with hundreds of unregistered infants, for instance, may appear to have fewer children than it actually does. Over time, that discrepancy could affect projections for future school enrolment, healthcare demand and other social services.
Lafoucriere said the problem becomes particularly significant as Nigeria works to strengthen its social protection system.
She explained that government policies and programmes need to be financed according to the number of people expected to benefit from them. Children missing from the civil register risk being left outside those calculations.
“Having a civil register is very important. But in that civil register, no child that is not registered at birth will exist,” she said.
Lafoucriere described birth registration as a fundamental right of every child and said a birth certificate should not be viewed simply as a piece of paper.
She said birth registration establishes a child’s legal identity and can facilitate access to education, healthcare and other essential services.
It also becomes important later in life for activities such as obtaining travel documents, participating in civic life and establishing inheritance rights.
“A birth certificate is not a piece of paper. It is a child’s ticket into school. It is what allows a doctor to put a name on a patient file,” she told journalists.
Without registration, she said, children could repeatedly face difficulties proving their identity as they grow into adulthood.
Despite the registration gap, UNICEF acknowledged progress in the region.
Lafoucriere said Lagos State, working with the National Population Commission and the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), was among the first states in southern Nigeria to formally launch birth registration for children under one.
She also noted that the birth certificate is now linked with a National Identification Number, describing the development as a significant step forward.
However, she cautioned that progress does not mean the registration gap has been closed.
“In every state represented in this room, the gap between children who are registered and children who are not is still too wide,” she said.
UNICEF said the problem is not necessarily caused by parents deliberately refusing to register their children.
According to Lafoucriere, many families are unaware that birth registration is free or that registration services may be available at nearby primary healthcare centres and community locations.
Geographical isolation also remains a challenge in some communities, with parents sometimes willing to register their children but unable to easily access registration points.
She added that the digitalisation of birth registration is still not fully functional in all locations.
UNICEF, she said, is supporting government efforts to digitalise the system and bring registration services closer to families, including through tablets deployed at ward level.
Lafoucriere urged journalists to use their platforms to increase public awareness about birth registration, particularly among vulnerable and hard-to-reach communities.
She said many families could be reached if information about registration was delivered in languages they understand, through platforms they use and by voices they trust.
“Your story can change all that,” she told journalists, urging them to move beyond statistics and report the experiences of real families, children and healthcare workers.
She said journalists, government, civil society organisations and development partners all have a role to play in ensuring that every Nigerian child is registered.
“The Southwest is doing slightly better than other regions, but we cannot leave a single child unregistered,” Lafoucriere said.
She added that birth registration must remain a priority because every child needs to be visible in Nigeria’s civil registration system.
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