Life stages in Chad

The main life-stage transitions in Chad include birth and identity registration, entry into school, movement from school or religious education into training and work, marriage and parenthood, displacement or return, illness or disability, older age and death. The responsible public bodies include the ministries responsible for health, education, women and early childhood, and territorial administration, together with communes, rural authorities and specialised agencies. Their services do not form a single nationwide system. Families, relatives, village and neighbourhood communities, community health workers and NGOs often fill gaps in protection, education, food, care and emergency support. Childhood support begins with legal identity. A birth must be declared within one month under Law 008/PR/2013, and the birth certificate is formally free. The father, mother, an ascendant or a witness to the birth may make the declaration through a commune, district office, rural chief place or a Chadian embassy or consulate. Tasdjil provides a digital one-stop registration service in selected health centres and hospitals, including for some refugee children. Distance, limited registration coverage, missing information, insecurity, mobility and related travel costs still prevent many families from completing registration promptly. Health and nutrition needs are linked to particular ages without becoming a separate health service system. The National Health Development Plan 2022–2030 and the Community Health Strategy prioritise newborn care, vaccination, malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea, HIV and severe acute malnutrition. Nutrition programmes give particular attention to children aged 6 to 23 months. Families may use health centres, mobile clinics and community health workers, but availability differs greatly between locations. Early childhood development, preschool, primary education and child protection also depend on the local presence of schools, services and organisations. Youth transitions are fragmented. A young person may move from formal school into non-formal education, an apprenticeship, a Technical and Vocational Training Centre or work. Qur'anic-school upgrading, community learning centres, life-skills activities, psychosocial support and youth peer educators provide additional options in some programmes. Access to secondary, higher, technical and professional education remains limited, especially in crisis-affected areas. Projects commonly prioritise people affected by displacement, school dropout, orphanhood or gender-based violence rather than providing one nationwide youth benefit. School dropout, illiteracy, child labour, child marriage, early pregnancy, violence, recruitment and displacement can interrupt the transition. Adult transitions usually concern earning a livelihood, supporting a household, caring for relatives, becoming a parent, returning from displacement, or adapting to illness or disability. The FY25–29 social protection programme plans three-year support packages for extremely poor and vulnerable households, including refugee and host households. Possible components include human-capital support, productive assistance, cash that responds to shocks, registration in a Unified Social Registry and digital payments. Access is not universal by age; it depends on registration, province, vulnerability and the programme operating in the area. Marriage is a legal and social transition with decentralised administration. The Ministry of Territorial Administration and Local Governance, DAPEC and communes may handle registration. The legal minimum age is 18 for both sexes. Marriage registration is legally provided for but is not generally compulsory. Publication of banns may take 10 to 30 days, and the ceremony or registration may follow about two months later. The certificate is free, while filing charges can vary by centre. Protection against child marriage remains uneven despite Law 029/PR/2015, so local access and protection practice require verification. There is no reliable evidence of a nationwide universal old-age pension, separate senior service or age-based benefit in Chad. Older people commonly depend on household and extended-family solidarity, neighbours and community support. Targeted or crisis-related cash, food or protection assistance may exist, but it depends on the programme and location. Care dependency is also mainly handled informally. Families and communities may combine their support with health centres, rehabilitation or disability services and NGO or humanitarian case management. Law No. 007/PR/2007 provides a formal disability framework, but practical services remain limited by distance, cost, staff shortages and insecurity. Displacement and other crises can change every life-stage transition at once. In 2026, about 4.5 million people in Chad, including 2.5 million children, were reported to need humanitarian assistance; the country also hosted about 1.5 million refugees and had 424,661 returnees and 225,689 internally displaced people. Support included education assistance for about 1.4 million school-age children and protection assistance for about 254,200 children, while around 2.9 million people lacked safe water. Conflict linked to Sudan and the wider region, displacement, floods, drought, hunger, malnutrition, cholera, meningitis and diphtheria affect access to school, identity documents, care, shelter and family unity. Priorities commonly include protection, family tracing, food, water and sanitation, shelter, health, education, psychosocial support and cash assistance, particularly in eastern, southern and Lac areas. Death registration is another legally required transition and generally has a one-month deadline, but its certificate is not universally free. Across life stages, people may move from family or community support to a basic public service and then to an NGO, United Nations, protection or cash programme. Prices and waiting times are not uniform nationwide: birth certificates are formally free, Tasdjil is free and quick where it operates, and marriage or death procedures vary by administrative centre. Cash, food, education, health and protection assistance is usually funded by a specific programme and may be temporary, so the responsible provincial office or programme should be checked before relying on it.