(Newsletter: CRVS Insight February 2023)

A meeting of South East Asia (SEA) civil registrars was organized from 7-9 February 2023 in Manila. The meeting provided a professional forum for civil registrars to discuss priority areas that are of common concern to the civil registrars in the region, as well as the terms of references and organizational setup of a South-East Asia civil registrars network. The priority areas discussed, included legislative frameworks, CRVS digitization in South-East Asia and inequalities in CRVS. Presentations from the meeting are available on www.getinpicture.org.

For each of the priority areas, a draft background paper was developed by ESCAP and UNICEF in preparation for the meeting. The papers will be published as a compendium later in 2023. Additionally, field trips were organized to the Office of the National Statistician and Civil Registrar General and registration offices in Muntinlupa. 

The meeting allowed participants to share existing practices and common challenges from their daily work with civil registration in the region. The meeting was supported by the Philippines Statistics Authority as well as other partners including ESCAP, Vital Strategies, CDC Foundation, Global Health Advocacy Incubator, UNICEF, UNFPA, UNHCR and WHO.