1 ESA/STAT/AC.219/8 Region-wide Programme to Improve Vital Statistics and Civil Registration Systems prepared by: Margarita F Guerrero, Ph D Regional Adviser on Statistics

2 What are Vital Statistics? Data, indicators, statistical summaries derived from recording of Births Deaths Causes of death Marriages Divorces

3 What are Gender Statistics? Data, indicators, statistics... About women/girls and men/boys – Sex-disaggregated About rights of women/girls – VAW – Reproductive health – Maternal mortality – Work, both paid and unpaid Informal employment Care work

4 Gender statistics: for what purpose? State of... – Gender inequality – Womens rights Hows and whys of gender-based disparities Evidence-based policies towards... – Gender mainstreaming – Gender equality – Gender justice – Womens liberation

Statistics on MORTALITY Vital Statistics Civil Registration

6 Relating Mortality and Gender Statistics From records of deaths and causes of death … to Mortality rates– by sex and age Mortality rates by causes of death- by sex and age – Maternal mortality – HIV-AIDs – Other diseases – Violence (?)

7 Better Vital Statistics … To improve the use of statistics for evidence- based decision-making To develop and disseminate quality statistics for inclusive and sustainable development Recurring themes: NSS and Statistics Development Partners

8 Human Rights Civil Registration Vital Statistics Governance Civil Registration & Vital Statistics Systems

Some Principles Region-wide Capacity Building

10 Region-wide approach accounts for … Diversity in Level of development of systems Strength of coordination among key institutions Level of awareness of importance, use and connection to rights Technical capacity Availability of resources and ranking of priorities

… and looks for COMMON concerns and challenges … and approaches that work and/or can be adapted across diverse situations

12 An Assumption– Increasingly … Governments and national statistical systems: Point A: Know where they are Assessing, monitoring and evaluating Point B: Know where they want to be Strategic planning, statistics development and implementation plans

13 Point A: Challenges Increasing awareness and political commitment Strengthening legal framework, institutional mandates and organization of work Improving coverage, completeness and quality Wider and more effective dissemination of data, analyses and use

14 Capacity Development Getting from point A to point B Who does what and with whom? Internal External

15 Guiding Principles– Region-wide Approach Responding to urgent development needs Supporting country commitment & plan Building on role of Regional Commission – Take global initiatives and regionalise – Intergovernmental forum – Implement in partnership & coordination with … Differentiating regional from country specific Relying on integrated approach Aiming for stepwise & spillover effect

16 Strategies– Advocacy High-level regional forum intergovernmental – Strengthening legal frameworks – Improving national coordination – Obtaining sustained political commitment – Year/Decade for civil registration Developing and applying advocacy tools for national-level advocacies – Developing a business case for civil registration and vital statistics improvement

17 Strategies– Knowledge Standards, guidelines & tools – Assessments – Applying and adapting existing ones – Filling in the gaps Knowledge-sharing – Regional networking

18 Strategies– Technical Assistance Advisory services– programmatic approach Training – Developing training curricula and materials with national training institutes – In-country training

19 Strategies– Coordinated Support Ongoing initiatives – WHO – Health Metrics Network – Knowledge hub– University of Queensland – UNICEF – UNFPA – PLAN International Facilitating South-South cooperation

20 Getting from Point A to Point B: Developing a framework for core gender statistics, including: health and mortality statistics

21 User Needs Core Set of Gender Statistics Required capabilities to produce the statistics Region-wide Programme Components Capability building initiatives determines informs delivers facilitates production of Engendered policies: formulating & monitoring; etc …