The webinar was held on Monday 8 March 2021, 12:00-13:30h (Bangkok time, GMT+7). The meeting record is available here.

A well-functioning CRVS system helps to ensure that every person has a legal identity, facilitating access to the benefits and protections of the State. Despite national and universal efforts to “get every one in the picture”, disparities in coverage of hard-to-reach and marginalized populations remain. Therefore, the Regional Action Framework on CRVS goes beyond the measurement of civil registration completeness at the national level and includes inequality assessment as part of the essential tools for achieving universal and well-functioning civil registration systems.

To answer countries' request for guidance on how to achieve it, ESCAP organized in collaboration with international and national organizations a series of webinars and Expert Group Meetings (EGM) with the overarching theme, “Inequalities in CRVS: Let’s really get every one in the picture!”.

In this third webinar, the experts discussed the indirect demographic methods for measuring completeness and coverage of registration of vital events with a focus on their application in low capacity countries. The data sources required and assumptions involved in implementing methods were also discussed. Additionally, criteria for deciding which method is most appropriate in different situations were examined. Sharing their experiences and perspectives, the session explored questions such as:

1. What methods are available to evaluate completeness and coverage of birth and death registration?
2. What are the advantages and disadvantages of these methods? What assumptions are made and what are the data requirements?
3. Can these methods be used to assess inequality in birth and death registration?
4. How can these methods be improved in order to facilitate their use in lower capacity countries?

The meeting was followed by an EGM 3 to reflect on the discussions of the webinar.