The South Pacific island of Vanuatu is rolling out a new scheme that uses text messages for registering births and deaths, Radio New Zealand International reported on Oct. 28, 2009.

Only about 40% of the popluation is believed to be registered at present as many forms go missing in the post, and some forms are not filled out properly. To counter that, the government is distributing mobile phones to clinics and rural health workers to gather data.

The director of internal affairs, George Bogiri, says the project was trialled on Epi Island and is now being extended on Santo. “Our people in the rural areas will give them to people who work in hospitals so that when a baby is born, the information on the parents, the date of birth and any other information that’s required is entered into the phone and sent directly to the registry.”

He says if the pilot works well, it’ll be extended to the whole country by the end of 2010.