(Newsletter: CRVS Insight January 2022)

ESCAP and 12 co-organizers together prepared the Second Ministerial Conference on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Asia and the Pacific. The Conference was attended by over 400 participants from 48 different countries and 16 international organizations, including 40 ministers and deputy ministers.

The Conference kicked off with a senior officials segment between 16 - 18 November, with discussions focusing on reviewing the progress made by countries during the first half of the CRVS Decade (2015-2024) and identifying the existing challenges to implementing the Regional Action Framework for CRVS. Discussions delved into different aspects of CRVS, including the role of the health sector, gender-sensitive CRVS systems and CRVS as an accelerator for implementing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The formal sessions of the Conference were complemented by a series of side-events and warm-up sessions organized by ESCAP and other partner organizations.

The last day of the Conference, 19 November, was reserved for the ministerial segment and included two ministerial roundtables; the first discussing CRVS system responses to the COVID19 pandemic, and the second discussing methods for building resiliency into CRVS systems to respond to challenges for the second half of the CRVS Decade (2015-2024).

The ministerial segment concluded with the adoption of the ministerial declaration entitled, "Building a More Resilient Future with Inclusive Civil Registration and Vital Statistics", which affirms regional commitment to the shared vision of universal and responsive systems, as well as emphasizes the critical role of CRVS in implementing the 2030 Agenda and notes the importance of CRVS in developing a holistic legal identity management system and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Recordings from the Conference and side events are available on www.getinthepicture.org.