WINDHOEK – Prime Minister Saara Kuugongelwa-Amadhila has officially launched the e-Death Notification System, a new component of the civil registration and identity management system in Namibia.
The e-Death Notification System was established as a project under the Harambee Prosperity Plan and e-governance programme by the Office of the Prime with key stakeholders such as the Ministry of Home and Immigration, Ministry of Safety and Security (Nampol), Ministry of Health and Social Services and the National Statistics Agency to further expand the service delivery capabilities of the digital civil registration and identification system that relates to the management of deaths.
The e-Death Notification System extends the death registration process by allowing the Ministry of Health and Social Services and mortuaries that serve as the first official point of contact with the deceased to electronically verify the identity of the deceased, classify the causes-of-death, and to electronically notify the Ministry of Home Affairs and Immigration about the death that has occurred.
Launching the system yesterday, she said the integration of the e-Death Notification with the e-National Population Registration System significantly reduces the process of obtaining a death certificate by the family and allows for production of comprehensive vital and mortality statistics.
She noted the completion of this system signals the achievement of yet another important milestone, moving us closer to achieving the vision as set out in the 2015/16 – 2020/20 Strategic Plan for the Civil Registration and Vital Statistic System in Namibia, which calls for the establishment of a “reliable, integrated and dynamic civil registration and vital statistics system with Complete, Timely and Quality data meeting stakeholders expectations”.
Overall, she said the impacts and benefits of a completely digitised civil registration, identification and vital statistics system includes the establishment of a legal and digital identity for all, improving access to government services, strengthening of governance and administration, increasing transparency, better controlling of fraud and corruption, and reducing the cost of collecting population information.
“The government has made a commitment to ensure that public service reaches all Namibians. However, this can only be achieved if all citizens are officially registered and issued with vital documents such as birth, marriage and death certificates,” she added. Over the past 10 years, she says the government has been making great strides to timely and accurately establish the identities of all its citizens at birth.
One of the major efforts has been to digitalise the civil registration system and all its legacy records previously contained in the multiple manual registers.
To date, government have a fully integrated digital civil registration and identification system that makes provision for births, marriages, IDs, and death events of citizens, resulting in an improved management of civil registration and service delivery to citizens.
The digital civil registration and identification system is targeted to form one of the key parts of the e-government systems that is being established by ministries, offices and agencies as directed in the Harambee Prosperity Plan and NDP5.
The system will provide identity verification and vital event (birth, marriages, ID, death) status information to e-government systems.
“I am pleased to note that this system is fully home grown and I am informed, it is the first of its kind in Africa. Through this project, Namibia has also become the first in the world to introduce the 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases coding for causes-of-deaths,” she said.
The system has been successfully piloted and implemented at 11 of the 13 police mortuaries, and at selected wards at Katutura State Hospital and Windhoek Central Hospital.