In the build up to the Second Ministerial Conference on CRVS, the ESCAP CRVS team has published an information note on the role inequality assessments play in implementing the CRVS Regional Action Framework.

The Pacific Island nations are preparing to review their CRVS laws and make recommendations for improving their national CRVS legal frameworks. With support from the Brisbane Accord Group, and in particular The Pacific Community, four countries in particular are undertaking this important work to gain support from their respective cabinets for improving and strengthening the frameworks currently governing their civil registration systems: Kiribati, Tuvalu, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.

North and Central Asian countries are continuing to move quickly in improving issues of statelessness within their borders. Notably, Uzbekistan has joined neighboring countries to address the crisis and grant citizenship to 50,000 stateless peoples.

To assist countries in collecting timely and accurate data, the World Health Organization's Classifications Team recently updated the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) to include enhanced coding instructions for mortality and morbidity related to Covid-19. The updated classifications include technical instruction on classifying confirmed, suspected and probable cases.

The instructions can be found here.

Maintaining operational continuity of CRVS systems is always important. An individual’s legal identity remains of crucial importance during public health emergencies. Individuals need to be able to prove who they are to access public services such as health care, humanitarian assistance, financial aid and other social services. Children who are not registered at birth due to disruptions, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, are particularly vulnerable.

In an effort to raise awareness for the upcoming Ministerial Conference in October, ESCAP's Statistics Director, Gemma Van Halderen, recently attended both "Connecting Vital Events Registration and Gender Equality" (ConVERGE) in Ottawa, as well as the 51st Statistical Commission in NY. During each event, Ms.