Event Details
The third CR8 meeting was jointly organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and the UNICEF Regional Office for South Asia (UNICEF-ROSA), and hosted by the Office of the Registrar General, Local Government Division, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, from 6 to 8 June 2023 in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
The meeting brought together civil registrars in South Asia to discuss priority areas of common concern. The meeting was convened to review progress against the 2015-24 CRVS Decade and take stock of efforts to date to strengthen CRVS in South Asia, highlight the successes, good practices and lessons learned, and identify promising and effective initiatives and investments that need to be prioritized and/or resourced to scale up initiatives in the region. It also offered the opportunity to review the impact of COVID-19 on targets and identify areas for accelerated action. In particular, the meeting focused on:
1. Stocktaking of efforts, interventions, and investments to date to strengthen CRVS in South Asia, including regional and country-led initiatives and action plans.
2. Review of available data on birth, death and causes of death registration in South Asia, and the evidence base for effective programming, key research findings, gaps and priorities.
3. Identification of promising and innovative practices, success stories and lessons learned, as well as remaining gaps, challenges and unintended consequences of programming and policy level interventions.
4. Revisiting achievements in implementing the 2015-24 Asia Pacific CRVS Decade including the Regional Action Framework in South Asia and commitments in the Ministerial Declaration (2021) identifying priorities for future actions to align with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
The meeting included group discussions on links to identity management and digitalization as well as update on the upcoming 2024 review of the CRVS Decade. Participants also benefited from a site visit to Bhakurta Union Pasishad, Savar, Dhaka to better understand the sub-district-level civil registration process at the local civil registration office and health clinic.
Resources for the fourth CR8 meeting can be found here.
MP4 files:
Nepal Birth Registration Video
ESCAP_Nicola with video_CR8_Service linkages
