Skip to main content
Project

Expanding global capacity in civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS): hosting the Centre of Excellence in CRVS Systems at UNFPA
 

Project ID
109721
Total Funding
CAD 2,000,000.00
IDRC Officer
Montasser Kamal
Project Status
Active
Duration
29 months

Programs and partnerships

Lead institution(s)

Project leader:
Priscilla Idele
United States

Summary

Civil registration (of such events as births, deaths, and marriages) provides legal identity to individuals, enabling them to fulfill their rights and obligations, and access a whole array of benefits.Read more

Civil registration (of such events as births, deaths, and marriages) provides legal identity to individuals, enabling them to fulfill their rights and obligations, and access a whole array of benefits. In addition, a continuous, reliable, and permanent flow of data generated from civil registration supports improved and evidence-based national planning and constitutes the basis of an administrative system of a country. However, despite significant investments in strengthening civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems, coverage of registration of vital events remains critically low, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Moreover, gender-related aspects of civil-registration systems still need attention and further research.

This project builds upon the past achievements and expands the global impact of the Centre of Excellence for CRVS Systems. The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) will be hosting the Centre of Excellence for the next 2.5 years. With its 130 country offices and five strategically positioned regional offices, UNFPA is well suited to host and expand the work of the Centre of Excellence. UNFPA has also closely collaborated with the Centre of Excellence on leveraging gender equity in health systems and improving vital statistics at scale in 14 countries.

There will be alignment and integration between the Centre of Excellence technical offerings and UNFPA support to census, geospatial data, and health information systems. Integration of the Centre of Excellence’s work within the UN’s system-wide efforts on civil registration, vital statistics, and legal identity strengthening is expected as well. Other expected results include: innovative knowledge generation to continue thought leadership in gender and civil registration; augmenting the cadre of early-career experts and practitioners within governments and UNFPA; and an increased number of countries producing quality annual vital statistics reports from health and civil-registration data, contributing towards monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals.