The ESCAP Statistics Division convened a meeting of the Partnership on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Asia and the Pacific on 6 February 2018 in Bangkok, Thailand. The meeting included a discussion of the outcomes of the 3rd Regional Steering Group meeting, held 18-20 October 2017.The discussions centered around the potential of organizing a ministerial conference on CRVS in 2020 as part of the mid-term review of the CRVS Decade as well as a set of new task forces under the Regional Steering Group on CRVS in Asia and the Pacific. Partners have been increasingly collaborating on in-country activities, training materials, regional workshops and meetings and the main purpose of the partnership is to improve coordination of CRVS activities at the regional, subregional and country level.

The Government of Pakistan has assigned the task of overall coordination of strengthening the CRVS system to the Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform (M/O PDR). A National CRVS Steering and Coordination Committee was created in 2014, under the chairmanship of the Federal Minister of Planning & Development. The members of this committee are relevant Federal Ministries, provincial departments, National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) and international partners. Four National Steering Committee meetings have been organized since its establishment. The M/O PDR conducted rapid and comprehensive CRVS assessments to determine the initial situation. These meetings and studies have led to a number of concrete decisions and recommendations. Given the lack of adequate CRVS institutional arrangements at the federal level, the government was initially unable to keep track of or translate these recommendations into action. To address this issue, the government has recently established the Technical Support Unit for CRVS (TSU-CRVS) to be housed within the M/O PDR.  The TSU-CRVS will have several specific functions. These include mainly the overall technical coordination, organization and follow-up of Steering Committee meetings, but also to facilitate strategic planning processes and help in capacity building in multiple CRVS disciplines. In addition, TSU- CRVS will assist in the organization of assessment studies, specific surveys and promotion of inter-agency coordination. This unit recently took the lead in organizing the 4th National Steering and Coordination Committee Meeting on January 17, 2018. One of the important outputs of this meeting was the next two-year plan for CRVS promotion (2018-2019). In the coming two years TSU-CRVS will facilitate and work on five major CRVS areas. This will include CRVS awareness/ advocacy seminars, in-depth provincial CRVS assessments, initiation of CRVS legislative reforms, creation of CRVS model districts and the national CRVS strategic planning process. 

Strengthening CRVS systems, which play a key role in monitoring and facilitating progress towards the SDGs, requires partnerships and knowledge sharing. The new website www.CRVSsystems.ca is an initiative of the Centre of Excellence for CRVS Systems. It aims to serve the global CRVS community of practice, and all those working to improve their civil registration and vital statistics systems.  The site features a free resource library with research, tools, videos, and guidance documents on civil registration, health information, and vital statistics systems. It also offers access to an online CRVS course, technical assistance, and a directory of experts.   The Centre of Excellence for CRVS Systems is a global knowledge hub on civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems located at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Ottawa, Canada. It was established with seed funding from Global Affairs Canada and IDRC, and it contributes directly to the work of the Global Financing Facility in Support of Every Woman Every Child (GFF).  

The CRVS Secretariat of the Cabinet Division, Government of Bangladesh organized the "International Conference on CRVS, 2018" on 23-25 January 2018 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The conference featured discussions on e-government and public service delivery, improving registration of death and causes of death, as well as strengthening CRVS to support safe migration. It offered a platform to share and exchange CRVS related knowledge, experiences, innovations and ideas of different countries. The conference results will be taken forward to shape the further work of improving the CRVS system in Bangladesh. They will also be the foundation of future policy and research debates and increased knowledge sharing among South Asian countries. Aside from participants from national and sub-national agencies of the CRVS system in Bangladesh, the conference was also attended by representatives from Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, as well as several development partner agencies active in supporting Bangladesh.

After 60 years the Nauruan Births Deaths and Marriages (BDM) Act of 1957 has been repealed. The new act enters into force in February 2018. The purpose of the new bill is to update the law and to cater for issues not covered in the BDM Act of 1957. Nauruan president Baron Waqa said with regard to the new bill: “It covers a number of matters that will augment the functions of the Births, Deaths and Marriages registry. It will ensure that the registry continues to be the trusted custodian of the life event records held by it. It will also ensure that the Republic has correct and up to date records” Among the most important changes are: The registrar’s responsibilities and that separate registers will be maintained was not explicitly stated in the old act. Now, the functions of the registrar were specified, which are to establish and maintain a separate register for: births, deaths, stillbirths, marriages, adoptions, change of names and national identity codes. This national identity codes will be newly established; the cabinet still needs to decide on regulations for national identity codes. With the new act the director of Medical Services will have the responsibility to notify the registrar of a child’s birth at a hospital in Nauru within 7 days. And if a person dies in a Nauruan hospital, the director of Medical Services shall notify the registrar immediately after the death. If a foreign child is born in Nauru and both parents are foreigners, the parents may register the birth of the child in Nauru, which was not provided for by the old act.