The ESCAP Statistics Division convened a meeting of the Partnership on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Asia and the Pacific on 6 February 2018 in Bangkok, Thailand. The meeting included a discussion of the outcomes of the 3rd Regional Steering Group meeting, held 18-20 October 2017.The discussions centered around the potential of organizing a ministerial conference on CRVS in 2020 as part of the mid-term review of the CRVS Decade as well as a set of new task forces under the Regional Steering Group on CRVS in Asia and the Pacific. Partners have been increasingly collaborating on in-country activities, training materials, regional workshops and meetings and the main purpose of the partnership is to improve coordination of CRVS activities at the regional, subregional and country level.

The Government of Pakistan has assigned the task of overall coordination of strengthening the CRVS system to the Ministry of Planning, Development and Reform (M/O PDR). A National CRVS Steering and Coordination Committee was created in 2014, under the chairmanship of the Federal Minister of Planning & Development. The members of this committee are relevant Federal Ministries, provincial departments, National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) and international partners. Four National Steering Committee meetings have been organized since its establishment. The M/O PDR conducted rapid and comprehensive CRVS assessments to determine the initial situation. These meetings and studies have led to a number of concrete decisions and recommendations. Given the lack of adequate CRVS institutional arrangements at the federal level, the government was initially unable to keep track of or translate these recommendations into action. To address this issue, the government has recently established the Technical Support Unit for CRVS (TSU-CRVS) to be housed within the M/O PDR.  The TSU-CRVS will have several specific functions. These include mainly the overall technical coordination, organization and follow-up of Steering Committee meetings, but also to facilitate strategic planning processes and help in capacity building in multiple CRVS disciplines. In addition, TSU- CRVS will assist in the organization of assessment studies, specific surveys and promotion of inter-agency coordination. This unit recently took the lead in organizing the 4th National Steering and Coordination Committee Meeting on January 17, 2018. One of the important outputs of this meeting was the next two-year plan for CRVS promotion (2018-2019). In the coming two years TSU-CRVS will facilitate and work on five major CRVS areas. This will include CRVS awareness/ advocacy seminars, in-depth provincial CRVS assessments, initiation of CRVS legislative reforms, creation of CRVS model districts and the national CRVS strategic planning process. 

Strengthening CRVS systems, which play a key role in monitoring and facilitating progress towards the SDGs, requires partnerships and knowledge sharing. The new website www.CRVSsystems.ca is an initiative of the Centre of Excellence for CRVS Systems. It aims to serve the global CRVS community of practice, and all those working to improve their civil registration and vital statistics systems.  The site features a free resource library with research, tools, videos, and guidance documents on civil registration, health information, and vital statistics systems. It also offers access to an online CRVS course, technical assistance, and a directory of experts.   The Centre of Excellence for CRVS Systems is a global knowledge hub on civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems located at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Ottawa, Canada. It was established with seed funding from Global Affairs Canada and IDRC, and it contributes directly to the work of the Global Financing Facility in Support of Every Woman Every Child (GFF).