The new D4H initiative  launched in March is a public/private partnership between the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Bloomberg Foundation that aims at helping low- and middle-income countries to:

• Build and strengthen civil registration and vital statistics systems
• Improve capacity for data analysis and interpretation
• Strengthen ability to use public health data for policy
• Conduct efficient public health surveys to monitor major risk factors for Non Communicable Diseases.

The initiative will focus on 20 countries and cities in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America to whom it will provide support, mostly in form of Technical Assistance (TA) but also through innovation and institution strengthening. The support for the CRVS component will be delivered by recognized global experts and coordinated through the University of Melbourne. For activities in ESCAP member countries, coordination efforts with the Regional Action Framework for CRVS and ESCAP have begun and will be important throughout the 4 years of the initiative.

The interventions and trainings offered in CRVS cover registration issues, improvement of cause of death data quality, medical certification, automated coding, VA for community deaths, data visualization and use. A baseline of country CRVS systems will be measured using a standard framework at the beginning and end of the initiative with progress being monitored on an annual basis.
 
As the inception phase comes to an end soon and the country work begins, it is expected that the tools and resources developed over the coming years, as well as the learnings from implementing system changes, will be widely shared in the region. All tools and knowledge generated under the initiative will be made publicly available.   

Check out this infographic which shows why this work is so important.