UNICEF Child Protection Specialist, Denis Onoise, made the call on Tuesday at a Birth Registration Media Dialogue organised for journalists in Lagos. He added that accurate birth registration data was essential for the effective implementation of social protection, healthcare, education and housing programmes. Onoise identified limited access to civil registration services, inadequate registration centres, inefficient registration procedures and shortages of financial, human and material resources as some of the major factors hindering birth registration across the country. He further advocated improved interoperability and data sharing among government agencies, the integration of birth registration into primary healthcare services and increased public awareness of the importance and benefits of birth registration. The NPC, she said, had previously relied largely on a manual registration system before progressively introducing digital processes to modernise birth registration.