(Newsletter: CRVS Insight April 2020)

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 new information note contends that conducting inequality assessments "is an essential step to getting every one in the picture and ensuring universal registration, but very few countries have so far performed specific studies on who is left behind." The note also discusses the role of inequality assessments in a country's ability to measure the Sustainable Development Goals and the tools available for supporting country efforts. The full information note can be found on www.getinthepicture.org.

Additionally, a new ESCAP blog post discusses the importance of a well-functioning CRVS system during this COVID-19 crisis. Importantly, the post notes that "to make progress against the pandemic we need to understand it and for that we need reliable and timely data". The post further explains how easily healthcare systems can get overwhelmed saying, "even under normal circumstances, without the extraordinary additional pressures health systems are currently experiencing, proper recording of causes of death is difficult and far from being reliable and complete". The post, which can accessed on www.unescap.org, goes on and acknowledges the progress being made in Asia-Pacific.