• 2025 review of CRVS progress in Asia and the Pacific

    Members and Associate Members of ESCAP are currently undertaking a review of their progress since the inception of the Asia Pacific CRVS Decade in 2014. A questionnaire has been distributed to National CRVS focal points and should be returned to ESCAP by 15 September.

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  • 2024 Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Applied Research Training Initiative

    The CRVS applied research training (CART) initiative focuses on enhancing CRVS systems through supporting applied research on strategies, interventions, and tools. This involves designing projects to address practical questions, employing robust methodologies, and identifying key personnel for effective implementation and publication. The need to strengthen practitioners' research capacity is evident, as highlighted in the Asia-Pacific CRVS research forum held in 2023. 

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  • Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems Improvement Framework

    To meet the targets of the CRVS Decade, a Business Process Improvement approach can help improve and streamline Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) system. The CRVS Systems Improvement Framework help CRVS stakeholders assess, analyze and redesign, to improve user experience and produce timely vital statistics. 

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  • Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Inequality Assessments

    The Ministerial Declaration on CRVS in Asia and the Pacific emphasizes the need to address CRVS inequalities among hard-to-reach and marginalized populations, promoting universality and equity in civil registration regardless of factors such as gender, religion, or ethnicity. Countries are encouraged to conduct assessments to assess where such inequalities may exist.

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Follow CRVS news in Asia and the Pacific by subscribing to the CRVS Insight Newsletter

The CRVS community in Asia and the Pacific has reflected on where it stands at the midpoint of the CRVS Decade (2015-2024) during the Second Ministerial Conference. Following this celebration of progress, many of our partners and member countries are leading actions to fill the remaining gaps.

To learn more about CRVS in Asia and the Pacific, please subscribe to our newsletter, which offers a monthly panorama of CRVS actions throughout the region

Previous editions can be found here.

 

 

Read the midterm report

 

Plan International Digital Birth Registration risk assessment tool

This document provides guidance on identifying and mitigating risks associated with digital birth registration for implementing government agencies and their partners operating in low- and middle-income countries. It expands on the model of DBR developed by Plan International as part of its Count Every Child initiative and within the context of strengthening civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems more broadly. The tool provides: checklists of likely risk factors, example risk mitigation mechanisms for each, and prompts to develop context-based responses.

Mortality statistics a tool to improve understanding and quality

This guide is intended to help build analytical capacity to assess the quality of mortality statistics that are currently being collected in order to improve their value in informing health policies and programs. To assist countries in validating and correcting their mortality data, the World Health Organization (WHO), in partnership with the Health Information Systems Knowledge Hub at the University of Queensland (UQ), Brisbane, has developed this mortality statistics assessment guide and toolkit.

Medical Examiners and Coroners Handbook on Death Registration and Fetal Death Reporting

This handbook contains instructions for medical examiners and coroners on the registration of deaths and the reporting of fetal deaths. It was prepared by the Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS). These instructions pertain to the 2003 revisions of the U.S. Standard Certificate of Death and the U.S. Standard Report of Fetal Death and the 1992 revision of the Model State Vital Statistics Act and Regulations.

Measuring CoD in Papua New Guinea using locally developed VA instrument

The VAI was initially designed to be used by field reporters with minimal schooling and had only 18 symptom questions. It also allowed for the recording of a brief open-ended narrative, the place of death, any treatment by health services, and the type of treatment. The disease classification was based on Lay reporting of health information (WHO 1978) and COD was entered into the international form of the death certificate. Verbal autopsies (VAs) were physician-coded with reference to diagnostic algorithms.

Mapping Gender Data Gaps

Data2X, named for the power women have to multiply progress in their societies, aims to advance gender equality and women’s empowerment through improved data collection and analysis that can provide a solid evidence-base to guide development policy. To provide basic information for a Data2X roadmap, this report maps gender data gaps in developing countries across five domains of women’s empowerment: (1) health, (2) education, (3) economic opportunities, (4) political participation, and (5) human security.

Partners

Multiple partners in Asia and the Pacific are engaged in improving CRVS systems across the region. In addition to the regional partnership of organizations working on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS), several sub-regional initiatives align partners' activities within a sub set of the Asia and Pacific countries. All of these development partners work together in supporting countries in their implementation of the Regional Action Framework throughout the Asian and Pacific CRVS Decade (2015-2024)

 

Introducing the International Statistical Classification of Diseases in countries: Guidelines for implementing cause-of-death certification, morbidity and mortality coding

These basic guidelines are a tool for countries and regions that have not yet introduced correct cause-of-death certification according to the ICD, or established ICD morbidity and mortality coding practices for their data, and therefore cannot compare the health situation of their population to that of other countries. The tool is organised for easy reference and explains in a stepwise way how to go about establishing ICD certification and coding practices in a country or region.

International identity management conference Proceedings

The main objective of the first International Identity Management (Id-M) Conference, organized by representatives from the Government of Korea (Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs), the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), was to create synergies and disseminate specialized knowledge regarding the conceptual and practical complexities involved in modernizing civil identity and identification systems.

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