A Joint Presentation of Philippine Statistics Authority (PIA) and Initiatives for Dialogue and Empowerment through Alternative Legal Services (IDEALS).

The seventy-first session of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific adopted resolution 71/14 on the Asian and Pacific Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Decade, 2015-2024

During the two-day meeting, participants discussed: sustainable development challenges and opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region; regional monitoring and review mechanisms; perspectives on the post-2015 development agenda and the sustainable development goals; the form and function of the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development beyond 2015; and the transition from the Millennium Development Goals to the sustainable development goals. The Forum also showcased national examples and experiences in sustainable development, with a focus on integration of its three dimensions.

Having a birth certificate is a key to citizenship. Most people born in this country take it for granted that they can prove they are Australian and lawful citizens by producing their birth certificate. But a number of Australians — predominantly Indigenous people and those from culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities — miss out on the benefits of citizenship and struggle to fully participate in society because their birth has never been registered, or if it was, they cannot produce a birth certificate to prove it.

The Regional Support Office of the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime has initiated a project to develop a toolkit for interested States to analyse and improve how they register births, deaths and marriages of these key population subgroups. The toolkit will be based on international standards, recommendations and case studies of good practice. It is expected that the toolkit will be published for use in the second half of 2016. This is the concept note for the project.