Millions of persons with disabilities, particularly children, in Asia and the Pacific are being left unregistered in civil systems, a silent crisis highlighted by the experts from Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). This legal invisibility, often due to the lack of a birth certificate, denies them basic rights and essential services like education, healthcare, and social protection. The problem is systemic, driven by inaccessible offices and forms, a lack of trained staff, and persistent social stigma.

Vital Strategies and the Center for Global Digital Health Innovation at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have partnered for a new collaboration under Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Data for Health Initiative. The partnership aims to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to strengthen Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems, improving data quality and enabling governments to transform health data into actionable insights for public health.

The initiative will focus on two key areas:

The Statelessness and Dignified Citizenship Coalition – Asia Pacific (SDCC-AP) is organising their quarterly webinar, which will spotlight Central Asia’s progress in addressing statelessness.

Central Asian countries have achieved notable success in addressing statelessness, offering valuable lessons for the wider Asia-Pacific region, where legal gaps, implementation challenges, cross-border mobility, and gender-based discrimination continue to perpetuate statelessness.

UNICEF is calling on governments and development partners to accelerate efforts toward universal birth registration (UBR), a critical measure to uphold every child’s right to legal identity and protection under international law. Despite notable progress, with more than 500 million children under five registered globally in the past five years, an estimated 150 million remain unregistered, and 55 million lack birth certificates.

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) Regional Data Hub for Asia and the Pacific has released the Asia–Pacific Migration Data Report 2025, which offers comprehensive and timely insights into regional migration trends.

In an era where data drives decision-making, the lack of complete and accurate death registration—especially when disaggregated by sex—poses a silent but significant threat to public health, equity, and accountability. Across Asia and the Pacific, millions of deaths go unrecorded each year, with female deaths disproportionately affected. This gap not only obscures the true burden of mortality but also reflects deeper societal inequities that hinder progress toward inclusive and evidence -based development.

The Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) is hosting the next Stats Café on 4 December 2025, focusing on the theme: “Mapping the Way Forward: Launching the New CRVS Systems Improvement Framework”

Transitioning from paper-heavy procedures to people-centered civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems requires strategic business process improvements. The upcoming Stats Café will examine how the CRVS Improvement Framework has been applied in Ghana and India to strengthen national systems and enhance service delivery.