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2025 review of CRVS progress in Asia and the Pacific

Members and Associate Members of ESCAP are currently undertaking a review of their progress since the inception of the Asia Pacific CRVS Decade in 2014. A questionnaire has been distributed to National CRVS focal points and should be returned to ESCAP by 15 September.
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2024 Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Applied Research Training Initiative

The CRVS applied research training (CART) initiative focuses on enhancing CRVS systems through supporting applied research on strategies, interventions, and tools. This involves designing projects to address practical questions, employing robust methodologies, and identifying key personnel for effective implementation and publication. The need to strengthen practitioners' research capacity is evident, as highlighted in the Asia-Pacific CRVS research forum held in 2023.

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Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems Improvement Framework

To meet the targets of the CRVS Decade, a Business Process Improvement approach can help improve and streamline Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) system. The CRVS Systems Improvement Framework help CRVS stakeholders assess, analyze and redesign, to improve user experience and produce timely vital statistics.

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Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Inequality Assessments

The Ministerial Declaration on CRVS in Asia and the Pacific emphasizes the need to address CRVS inequalities among hard-to-reach and marginalized populations, promoting universality and equity in civil registration regardless of factors such as gender, religion, or ethnicity. Countries are encouraged to conduct assessments to assess where such inequalities may exist.

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Follow CRVS news in Asia and the Pacific by subscribing to the CRVS Insight Newsletter

The CRVS community in Asia and the Pacific has reflected on where it stands at the midpoint of the CRVS Decade (2015-2024) during the Second Ministerial Conference. Following this celebration of progress, many of our partners and member countries are leading actions to fill the remaining gaps.

To learn more about CRVS in Asia and the Pacific, please subscribe to our newsletter, which offers a monthly panorama of CRVS actions throughout the region

Previous editions can be found here.

SDG baseline report highlights the role of CRVS in achieving the SDGs

ESCAP recently launched the Asia-Pacific SDG Baseline Report during a presentation of regional perspectives on the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The presentation was held, during the 2017 High-level Political Forum on Sustainable Development (HLPF) in New York.

The new report establishes a baseline for the SDGs by illustrating the development gaps that need to be addressed for the successful implementation of the SDGs. The analysis focuses on global SDG indicators to assess regional achievements for each SDG in the baseline year 2015. It applies a subset of these indicators to illustrate the progress made since 2000 and progress needed to meet the 2030 targets.

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Launch of the Viet Nam National CRVS Steering Committee

The Ministry of Justice of Viet Nam hosted the launch of the National CRVS Steering Committee in Hanoi on 16 June 2017 to announce the Viet Nam CRVS National Action Programme (2017- 2024).

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Supporting national authorities to improve public health data collection and use

The World Health Organization estimates that 65 percent of all deaths worldwide –around 35 million each year– go unrecorded. Moreover, millions of those deaths recorded, lack a reliable cause of death. Without this information, government officials, public health leaders and founders cannot make informed decisions.

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Counting the uncounted: 1.1 billion people without IDs around the world

The World Bank's ID4D program has published the third annual update of the Global Dataset on the estimated number of people around the world without an officially-recognized ID - 1.1 billion - including 357 million in South Asia and 82 million in East Asia and the Pacific.

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The completeness of death registration in Thailand: Evidence from demographic surveillance system of the Kanchanaburi Project

This study aims to assess the quality of mortality data from the registration system of Thailand. The study takes advantage of the Kanchanaburi Project by comparing the deaths found in the annual censuses to those recorded in the civil registration system in order to measure the level of under-registration. The age and sex pattern of death registration found in this study might be useful information in adjusting the data from this source.

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Innovations for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Asia and the Pacific

An effective Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) system helps secure a person’s legal identity, tracks the major events of an individual’s life such as; birth, adoption, marriage, divorce, death, and cause of death, and is essential for planning, measuring and monitoring progress of development. In the past few years, several initiatives have been underway to harness the potential of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to strengthen CRVS.

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Asia-Pacific Civil Registrars' Meeting

UNICEF, UNHCR, UNESCAP, Plan International, and WHO, in collaboration the CRVS Regional Steering Group and other partners, hosted the Asia-Pacific Civil Registrars Meeting. The main objectives of the meeting were to:

• Agree on the formulation of the proposed Asia-Pacific Civil Registrars’ Network and the objectives, principals, roles, modalities and structure

• Present good practices, pilots and promising innovations at national level, and provide guidance on how to most effectively manage and scale up innovations to strengthen CRVS systems

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The state of identification systems in Africa: A synthesis of country assessments

As a first step in assisting its client countries to close this identity gap, the World Bank Group’s ID4D initiative conducts Identity Management Systems Analyses (IMSAs) to evaluate countries’ identity ecosystems and facilitate collaboration with governments for future work. To date, analyses have been conducted in 17 African countries. Overall, these analyses reveal a wide range of identity system types and levels of development. Some countries have systems that are relatively advanced in terms of coverage, robustness, integration, and utility.

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The state of identification systems in Africa: Country briefs

This publication provides a brief sketch of foundational ID systems in 48 African countries, giving valuable information on the state of birth registration and national ID systems in each country.

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Improving vital statistics and cause of death statistics: the experience of Thailand

This document was the meeting document of the First session, Committee on Statistics, organized in Bangkok from 15 to 17 December 2008. It was contributed by Dr. Yawarat Porapakkham, Dr. Melanie Bertram SPICE project, Ministry of Public Health, Dr. Pramote Prasartkul, Institute for Population and Social Research, Mahidol University, Dr. Lene Mikkelsen, Health Metrics Network and Dr. Alan D. Lopez, School of Population Health, The University of Queensland.