Background
Over the past decade, significant strides have been taken to enhance the registration rates of vital events. A notable achievement in Asia and the Pacific is the successful reduction in the number of children under five whose births were unregistered, declining from 135 million in 2012 to 64 million in 2019. Nonetheless, more efforts and resources are needed to accelerate progress towards the goals of the Regional Action Framework on CRVS in Asia and the Pacific, and to extend the benefits of CRVS to all, especially the population groups furthest behind.
As part of the proclamation of the Asia and Pacific Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Decade (2015-2024), governments in the region requested that further regional action be taken to support the improvement of CRVS systems. The Regional Action Framework responds to that request as a catalyst for governments and development partners to focus and accelerate their efforts to realize a shared vision and the three CRVS goals outlined in the framework during the Decade. The mid-term review, and accompanying technical report, of progress made by countries in the Asia-Pacific region since the beginning of the Decade was able to demonstrate significant achievements in many countries in the region, yet with identified shortcomings in countries’ ability to evaluate the completeness of their civil registration systems, as well as capability and capacity gaps in this sphere.
In 2022 ESCAP produced guidelines on measuring the completeness of CRVS data. Since then, multiple countries in the region have conducted assessments of inequalities in civil registration, using these guidelines or more qualitative approaches.
This Stats Café looked at the experiences of countries in estimating completeness of vital events and highlight some of the qualitative work in this area. CRVS inclusivity is one of the key themes for the Third Ministerial Conference on CRVS in Asia and the Pacific to be held 24-26 June 2025. Therefore, the issue of inclusivity is included in the 2025 review of CRVS in Asia and the Pacific, and this Stats Café highlighted some of the initial findings on inclusivity from this review. Further background information on inclusivity in the context of the 2025 review could be found in this information note by the Regional Steering Group for CRVS in Asia and the Pacific.