African Centre for Statistics United Nations Economic Commission for Africa Issues to be Addressed in Reforming and Improving Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems in Africa Meeting of Experts for the First Conference of African Ministers responsible for Civil Registration August 2010 UNCC, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Genene Bizuneh ACS, ECA

Content 2 l Approaches and Results l Areas of Reform and Improvement l Filtering Technical, Operational and Policy Issues

Approaches and Results 3 l Improvement supported with reform  Rationale, consensus building, coordination and harmonization l Define results chain  Goal  Outputs  Outcomes (make reference to the medium-term plan)

Areas of Reform and Improvement 4  Technical  Legal  Organizational  Operational  Advocacy and Communication

Technical 5 A. Setting national standards  Concepts and definitions  Vital events to be recorded  Including causes of death  Content and design of registration forms  Interface with vital statistics  Content and design of registration evidences - the certificates  Registration manuals/guidelines  Vital statistics manuals/guidelines

Technical … Cont’d 6  Registration approach/ method  Organizational arrangement  Centralized or decentralized or mixed  Vital statistics compilation  including causes of death classifications  Data capturing and processing technology  Monitoring and evaluation  Techniques and tools

Technical … Cont’d 7 B. Setting regional standards  Purpose and function of civil registration  Registration method and compilation procedure  Registration coverage and completeness  Vital statistics - timeliness, completeness and quality  Content and production of vital statistics  Monitoring and evaluation  Data harmonization

Legal 8 l Content and scope of civil registration laws  Addressing legal purposes  Addressing administrative purposes  Addressing statistical purposes  Coverage – geographic and population l Compulsoriness l Budget source l Implementation

Organizational 9 A. Planning and monitoring systems l Developing civil registration and vital statistics plans l Integrating monitoring and evaluation mechanisms in the plans B. Organizational structure l Civil registration  Under federal administration  Under centralized administration

Organizational … Cont’d 10 l Vital statistics  Under federal administration  Under centralized administration C. Administrative arrangement l Administrative accountability  Civil registration under which ministry?  Vital statistics under which ministry? l Local registration offices  Under the public administration or  Under sector ministry or department

Organizational … Cont’d 11 D. Institutional integration and resource l Integration between civil registration and vital statistics  at ministerial level  at agency level  at local registration level l Resource requirements and management  for civil registration  for vital statistics

Organizational … Cont’d 12 E. Capacity building l Capacity building  Short term  Long term l Support from development partners  Technical  Financial and logistics F. Education and communication  Content  Who does what?

Operational 13 l Role of ministries responsible for civil registration l Role of ministries responsible for statistics l Role of civil registration office(s) l Role of vital statistics compiling office(s) l Role of other ministries or departments in support of civil registration or vital statistics l Who should be the local registrar?  In urban areas  In rural areas l Role of local registrars

Operational … Cont’d 14 l Who should be the informant? for birth, death, … l Integrating vital events recording with public administration and basic social service operations l Building the capacity of local administrations in processing and utilization of vital statistics data at the local level l Vital statistics information transfer to the center l Vital statistics editing, coding and processing  Centralized or decentralized l Application of data capturing and processing technology

Advocacy and Communication 15 l Strategy  Demand creation  civil registration evidences  vital statistics information  Involvement  health institutions and facilities  education institutions and schools  religious authorities  cultural and traditional authorities and groups  professional associations and individuals  media institutions and personnel

Advocacy… Cont’d 16 l Utilization of media facilities  Free access and utilization of public media facilities  Special arrangement in using private media facilities

Filtering Technical, operational and Policy Issues 17 Breakaway sessions in TWO PARALLEL groups

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