The World Health Organization, Regional Office for South-East Asia (WHO/SEARO) is organizing a regional workshop on strengthening the national civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) system from 26 to 29 September 2023 in Bali, Indonesia. 

The primary objective of the workshop is to build countries capacities in developing strategic and operational action plans to strengthen the national CRVS system core business processes, to improve data completeness, quality and use (with more focus on mortality statistics) so as to strengthen evidence based operational plans and policies and enhance accountability.

The specific objectives of the workshop are to:

1. review the progress to date countries have made in strengthening their CRVS system core business processes and to identify the key gaps and challenges faced in achieving further improvements;

2. discuss and bring into the focus the importance of a comprehensive system approach to strengthen CRVS system and build capacities for reporting of death and cause of death data with protocols for data management, analysis and use. Where necessary, the system approach will address specific issues related to legal, administrative and technical factors that need attention for CRVS improvement; and

3. guide countries in developing a national strategic action plan for implementing a system approach including use of digital technologies to strengthen CRVS, with a focus on data outcomes in terms of production of reliable mortality and cause of death data;

4. support countries in designing an initial implementation plan that targets the production of reliable vital statistics for a pilot set of population clusters, as a 'proof of concept', by mid/end 2025; and

5. develop a broad road map towards improving the national and regional mortality statistics in the short- (2023/2025) to medium- (2026/2028) to long- (2029/2030) term with a notional set of milestones and targets.

The participants will be relevant ministries for CRVS work from countries in our region and international partners.