1. Dates: 1-3rd October 2018 Suva, Fiji
Basic concepts and principles of civil registration and vital statistics
Workshop on Improving storage and archival of civil registration records and documents
Dates: 1-3rd October Suva, Fiji

2. Outline
What is civil registration, what is vital statistics and why do we care?
Regional and international commitments towards CRVS
The Brisbane Accord Group, Pacific vital statistics action plan
Emerging country needs and important resources
The future

3. What is Civil registration and why is it important ?
Civil registration is the continuous, permanent, compulsory and universal recording of the occurrence and characteristics of vital events in accordance to the law of a country.
Civil registration is carried out for two main purposes:
Establishing the legal documents provided for by law- [ Establishing Legal identity]
Provide a source of national sources of population –[Vital statistics]
Vital events: Live births, deaths, foetal deaths, marriage, separation, divorce, annulment of marriage, adoption, legitimation and recognition
Foetal death: death prior to the complete expulsion or extraction from its mother of a product of conception, irrespective of the duration of pregnancy;
the death is indicated by the fact that after such separation the foetus does not breathe or show any other evidence of life, such as beating of the
heart, pulsation of the umbilical cord or definite movement of voluntary muscles (note that this definition broadly includes all terminations of pregnancy
other than live births, as defined above).

4. Legal identity
Identity: A unique set of features and characteristics that individualize a person, including the name, surname, date of birth, gender and nationality of the individual.
Legal identity can simply be defined as who you are before the law or the official status of ones identity as recognised by the govt
Having an identity is a fundamental human right which enables an individual ability to enjoy all other rights.
Legal identity is established at first at birth, through birth registration and ends at death though not its legal effects.

5. Legal identity continued
Legal identity and legal identity documents enable an individual to establish a name and important affiliations which are critical in claiming fundamental human and civil rights. Example right to a nationality.
From birth, the child also has the right to a nationality. Nationality can be obtained in two different ways: i.e. Jus sanguinis (By blood)  and Jus soli (By birth) : The child will have the nationality of the territory on which he was born. Though not conferred, nationality is confirmed through the issuing of a birth certificate
At an aggregate level legal identity records are central to critical government functions and services such as electoral processes, taxation, education

6. Civil Registration based Vital Statistics (CRVS)
The Civil Registration System creates a data source for Vital Statistics
Civil Registration System
Vital Statistics
Health records (HIS)
Legal records
Census, Surveys, …
Diagram to show relationship between civil registration and vital statistics.
Civil Registration is recognised by the UN as the most important and most reliable source of vital statistics

7. Pacific Country commitment towards CRVS : (i) SDG agenda
Commitments towards the global Sustainable Development Goals
Target 16.9 :16.9 By 2030, provide legal identity for all, including birth registration
More than 90 % of the SDGs targets are linked to international human rights and labour standards these are based on the 1st right to identity
Population data and hence statistics for monitoring the global SDG agenda are ideally sourced from Civil registration systems

8. Pacific Country commitment towards CRVS : (i) Asia and Pacific decade for CRVS

9. (ii)The Asia-Pacific Regional Action Framework – GOALS for the CRVS decade

10. Brisbane Accord Group (BAG) and the Pacific Vital Statistics Action Plan (PVSAP)
The Brisbane Accord Group (BAG) was established in 2010 with the aim of supporting countries to improve their vital statistics and to improve coordination between development partners
The work of the group is coordinated through the Pacific Vital Statistics Action plan (PVSAP), which sits under the Pacific Ten Year Statistics Strategy,
The primary focus of the programme is to support all countries amd territories in the region to improve: (i) registration of key vital events and (ii) accessibility, quality and use of vital statistics

11. BAG Implementing the PVSAP at a country level
Committee
Formalize a committee, identify key stakeholders, and develop TORs
Assessment
Bring all stakeholders together to complete a comprehensive assessment of current CRVS
Prioritize
Based on the results of the assessment set agreed-upon national priorities
Plan
Develop a national country improvement plan with stakeholder buy-in and agreed-upon responsibilities
Share Plan
Share the plan so development partners can focus their support in a coordinated manner to meet countries’ technical assistance needs
Political endorse-ment
Obtain high-level endorsement for improvement plans
CRVS in NSDS
Ensure CRVS is embedded in the National Strategy for the Development of Statistics
Update NMDIs
Produce vital statistics for policy planning
The basic premise of the Pacific Vital Statistics Action Plan is to work with countries to undertake an assessment of their collection and reporting systems for births, deaths and causes of death. Assessment findings are used by countries to develop a country-specific Vital Statistics Improvement Plan.

12. Pacific countries are at different stages through this journey
There is still a lot yet to be done to improve the performance of the systems, especially in ensuring:
Universal registration and certification of the critical vital events: timely registration of all vital events
Routine production and dissemination of high quality vital statistics related to the events recorded
High quality certification of causes of death with complete elimination of ill- defined causes, improved coding practices
Routine monitoring of performance of systems including publication of completeness estimates

13. Emerging country needs/ challenges
Establishment of robust IT solutions to support civil registration functions
Increasing interest among governments to establish national identification systems
Increasing need for cross border information sharing especially for deaths, name- changes and marriages
Limited capacity for coding of causes of death

14. Important resources ; CRVS
Pacific Best practice legislation guidelines Pacific Best practices legistlation guidelines: cihttp://
Handbook on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems: Management, Operation and Maintenance, Revision 2018): Methods/files/Handbooks/crvs/crvs-mgt-E.pdf
Principles and Recommendations for a Vital Statistics System, Revision 3 (2014) Methods/files/Principles_and_Recommendations/CRVS/M19Rev3-E.pdf
Handbook on Training in Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems (2002) Methods/files/Handbooks/crvs/Series_F84-E.pdf
Handbook on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics System: Developing Information, Education and Communication (1998) Methods/files/Handbooks/crvs/SeriesF_69-E.pdf
Handbook on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems: Preparation of a Legal Framework (1998) Methods/files/Handbooks/crvs/SeriesF_71-E.pdf

15. Important resources; National ID
Principles on identification for development 7/Principles-on-identification-for-sustainable-development-toward- the-digital-age
Integration unique identification numbers into civil registration: Integrating-Unique-Identification-NEW-FINAL-0221.pdf