The EGM was held on 11 and 12 February 2021, 11:00-14:00h (Bangkok times, GMT+7). The meeting was followed at a later date by the Third Webinar on Indirect Demographic Methods for Measuring Completeness and Coverage for Low Capacity Countries.

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!”.

Following the second webinar, this EGM explored questions such as:

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the different data sources for assessing inequality in civil registration?
2. What are the criteria for determining which data sources are the most appropriate, when are they appropriate to be used, which assumptions are made and do those assumptions hold?
3. How may these data sources be improved to be a better resource for assessing inequality?