Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS)

Civil Registration establishes a person's legal identity, including their right to recognition before the law and their formal relationship with the State. It records events like births, deaths, marriages, and divorces. Recording every life event is also an opportunity to produce accurate, complete and timely Vital Statistics on the health and demographics of the population, as well as maintain a national civil registry or population database.

To improve Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems, Pacific countries and development partners have committed to the Action Plan for Pacific Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (APPCRVS), which sits under the Ten-Year Pacific Statistics Strategy and the Asia and Pacific decade for CRVS (2014–2024) and the corresponding regional action framework. Within these frameworks, countries endeavour to achieve three main goals:

1. Universal registration of births and deaths (including causes of death)
2. Provision of legal documentation (birth and death certificates) on all vital events registered
3. Production of accurate, complete and timely vital statistics based on civil registration records.

Completeness of births and deaths registration

within 12 months of event 

Our role in CRVS

Technical assistance for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) in the Pacific is coordinated through the Action Plan for Pacific Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (APPCRVS) which is a coordination mechanism for the activities of the Pacific CRVS Partner Collaboration.

The basic approach of the APPCRVS is to work with countries to undertake an assessment of their collection and reporting systems for births, deaths and causes-of-death. This information is then used by countries to develop a multi-sectoral country-specific CRVS improvement plan. SDD, with funding from the Bloomberg Data for Health Initiative, supports countries in building capacity to enable efficient implementation of different components of the CRVS plan.

SDD’s technical assistance programme

1. Strengthening country-level CRVS processes through technical advice, assessments, action planning and improvement initiatives
2. Digitisation and interoperability of CRVS systems through business case development and implementation of new systems
3. Strengthening cause of death reporting through country and regional initiatives
4. Coordination and collaboration through support of the Pacific CRVS Partners Collaboration and the Pacific Civil Registrars Network

Statistics on Civil Registration

Data on the completeness of birth and death registration is available here

Data on live births, deaths, fetal deaths, marriages and divorces is available here

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