The Centre of Excellence for CRVS Systems, International Development Research Centre (IDRC) is hosting a high-Level Panel (HLP) and technical consultations on gender and Civil Registration and Vital Statistics. The event will be held on the 26th of February 2018 at the IDRC in Ottawa, Canada. All sessions will be webcast live in English and French.

The main objectives are:

1. To inspire a global commitment to integrating gender issues in civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems.
2. To showcase promising ideas, preliminary efforts and realistic opportunities to address gender issues in CRVS systems.
3. To catalyze the conversation about sustainable solutions at the political, policy and programmatic levels for generating reliable, real time, disaggregated data to inform policies and programs for improved lives of all.

This event will be divided into two components: The first component is a high-level panel that will aim to inspire a global commitment to integrating gender issues in Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems. The second component consist of technical meetings to discuss the status of the field, evaluate opportunities and challenges, and identify priority and actionable areas that could help strengthen CRVS systems to better capture the vital events of women and girls. By making the invisible visible – both in vital event registration and consequently at the policy level – efforts in this direction can help contribute to achieving gender equality goals.