Only a handful of births are registered in the remote Kolda region of southern Senegal, but a new mobile phone application that allows parents to text the details of a newborn to obtain a birth certificate could cut down school drop-outs when the children are older.<\/p>\n
Senegalese law does not make birth declaration mandatory, yet birth certificates are required for enrolling a child in school and registering to write exams. The remoteness of some villages from civil registration centres, combined with poverty, ignorance, and even negligence, have hampered birth registration.<\/p>\n