REPORT OF CIVIL
REGISTRATION AND VITAL
STATISTICS SYSTEM IN
MADAGASCAR
INTRODUCTION
• The events relating to civil status of each citizen
are registered in each municipality, as center
status according to law No. 61-025 of 9 October
1961 on civil status. A circular of application is
appended to this law with models for the
registration of each category of act of civil.
• There are 1500 municipalities, called commune
in the territory of the Republic of Madagascar
I - Competent authority to record
the events of the civil
• The Mayor is the Chief Administrative Officer of
the Commune, and the burden of local interests.
• The Mayor and deputies are officers of civil
status.
• The officers of civil status are only competent to
receive and keep the proceedings of the state
civil.
• The officer had standing to receive the
statements and acts that draw within their
constituency.
II - Duties of officiers of state civil
• The officer is responsible for:
1 To receive declarations of birth and to draw
up act;
2 To obtain concurrently with the officers and
notaries public authorities, the recognition of
children born outside marriage and to establish
act;
3 To observe the marriage and to establish act;
4 To receive declarations of death and prepare
act;
5 Receive acts of adoption and rejection (adult);
6 To keep the registers, ie: To include all acts
that he has received:
- Transcribe some acts received by other public
III – The events of the civil
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Birth
Death
Marriage
Adoption
Recognition of child born outside marriage
Act rect
Judgment of divorce or marriage annulment
Judgment of name change
IV - The supervisory authorities
The verfication and monotoring the fuctioning of
civil status is exercised by :
• judicial authorities : prosecutor at the court of
First Instance or the judge delegated by him
• State representative at the district level under
the control of legality. This authority also
responsible for the administrative census and
the establishment of database of the population.
V - The registration system of
civil
In each center status, it is required in duplicate
separate registers:
a) For births and recognitions;
b) For deaths;
c) For marriages;
d) For adoptions and reject
1. The rules common to all acts of civil
The statements are received:
- For births by the officer's place of birth;
- For deaths by the place of death;
- For weddings, for the venue of the celebration;
- For adoptions and discharges, by that of the
habitual residence of the adoption or rejection;
- (Law 66-017 of 05.07.66) for recognition by
that of habitual residence of the person who
recognizes the child;
2. The rules of each category of act of
civil
a) Birth certificates
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Statements of birth should be made within twelve days
of birth.
The birth certificate should state the date, time and
place of birth, sex and the names and surnames that
are given the full name, age, place of birth, occupation
and residence habitual father and mother and, where
appropriate, name, occupation and residence of the
registrant.
The birth certificate is drawn up immediately and
signed by the declaring and the officer
b) Death certificate
Any act of death include:
 the date, time and place of death;
the name, sex, date and place of birth,profession
and home of the deceased; the full name,
occupation and residence of his father and
mother;
 the names of spouses, if the deceased is
married; degrees if appropriate, the full name,
age, occupation and address of the registrant
and, where appropriate, its kinship with the
deceased, or the fact that he has witnessed the
death.
 It is given on the records no indication of the
circumstances of death unless the identity of the
corpse remains unknown.
 The authority responsible for issuing burial
permits will collect the information necessary for
the declaration and the establishment of the
death, it will forward information to the civil
jurisdiction.
c) Acts of marriage
• Marriage can be contracted in one of two
ways:
- Celebration by the officer or,
- In traditional celebration, followed by civil
registration (only in rural areas)
• The marriage will contain:
1 the name, occupation, age, date and place of
birth, parentage and residence of the spouses;
2 nationality declared by the spouses on the
inquiry made to them by the officer;
3 a finding by the officer that the contractors
have said or agreed to take to spouses;
4 names, ages, occupation and residence of
witnesses
d) Act of adoption
The act of adoption must indicate:
 full name, date and place of birth (approximate
age when the date of birth can not be listed),
affiliation, occupation and residence of the
adopter;
 full name, date and place of birth (approximate
age when the date of birth can not be listed),
affiliation, occupation and residence of the
adoptee;
e) Act of rejection
All Malagasy nationals are allowed to reject a
child, but they must first be authorized by the
presiding judge of their residence to the
statement of rejection.
Accordingly, the registration officers will not
receive a rejection only on presentation of the
authorization granted by the presiding judge.
f) act of recognition of children born outside
marriage
• The act of recognition of a child born
outside marriage is registered to date.
• Mention is made of the act of recognition
on the sidelines of the birth certificate, if
one exists, and it is to notice within three
days, the clerk of the court's place of birth.
Marginal references
The endorsement is a marginal
advertising intended to clarify
the legal position of the holder
of an act of civil status.
a) The acts that must be marked in the
margins
On the sidelines of birth:
acts of marriage,
 adoption
 rejection,
 death,
 recognition
 judgment of divorce, annulment of marriage,
 denial of paternity,
 Judgment change of name,
 judgments or decisions establishing paternity or
adoptive.
Regarding divorce, the officer on registers which
has been the transcript of the decision made on
the sidelines of the marriage and birth
certificates of the parties and give notice of
divorce refer to the Registrar of the court.
b) The particulars essential to include
 The date and nature of the event, on
court judgments, date and the court has
made.
5. Judgments of supplementary civil
• When the birth or death has not been made
within the period prescribed by law, anyone who
wants to replace the lack of a birth or death must
bring to end this action in the court of first
instance.
• The court makes a ruling supplementary birth
certificate or death as appropriate.
• Trial supplementary birth certificate or death
must be entered in the center of civil status.
V - The factors that hamper the
production of vital statistics from
civil registration
• According to the Civil Status Act, each
center civil forward to the Ministry of
Justice every five years a table showing all
categories of acts recorded.
• In principle, this table would allow the
Department of Justice to establish the
statistical data on the events of the civil
status.
For several years, centers civil doesn’t send the
table in question to the Ministry of Justice for
various reasons :
• Inadequate budget of Commons for the costs of
shipments,
• Insufficient number of administrative staff
compared to the volume of work to do on civil
status
• the registration officers have not received
adequate instructions to set the table
• administrative and judicial authorities
responsible for control and supervision of civil
status are not available to the proper control
because they are inundated with other work at
their charge
• Moreover, registration officers no longer
send the statistical sheets to the National
Institute of Statistics for various reasons:
• Previously, statistical sheets were provided free
by INSTAT. Currently, the centers of civil status
must buy these sheets on the budget for the
town which is insufficient.
• In some centers civil status, these sheets still
exist and are satisfied but they are no longer
forwarded to the Central Bureau of Statistics
because the shipping package is then paid
before the shipment was free
• On the organizational level, it was found that the
malfunctioning center for a civil cause the
problem of payment of salaries of secretaries of
state civil. Therefore, they are not well motivated
to do their work regularly
VI – Barriers to the registration of
events in the civil
Some events in the civil status are not registered at the
center of the civil: births, deaths, marriages traditional
The reasons :
 Particularly in remote rural areas centers of civil status or
isolated. The period of 12 days prescribed by law for the
birth and death is considered too short
 The rural population is not sufficiently aware of the
importance of birth and death
 the rural population is not aware of the proceedings on
the registration of traditional marriages at the town hall
VII – PLANS TO IMPROVE CIVIL
REGISTRATION
• Since 2004, the Government had launched a
rehabilitation program in the registration of births
• The program's objective is to implement all
means to ensure that births are registered within
the legal deadline.
• The implementation of the program is under the
coordination of the Ministry of Interior and the
Ministry of Justice with the collaboration of
several departments
Actions already undertaken
• The establishment of a local committee for
monitoring the registration of births,
• The relaunch of administrative and judicial
control civil status
• Reform of the law: thus the reporting
period of 12 days is extended by 45 days.
In remote rural areas or isolated, a special
procedure for registering births are created
• To facilitate the registration of births and
encourage people to register births
• The registration officers are currently
receiving training and instructions. To this
end, they receive training on how to
respect for escalations data events of the
civil authorities. Registration officers are
currently receiving training and
instructions.
• Children who were not registered at birth are
being recorded by means of issuing judgments
supplementary birth certificate by the courts
• The process of implementing the program
begins with the identification of unregistered
children.
• The implementation of this program is made with
the technical and financial collaboration of
UNICEF, UNDP and in collaboration with civil
society and NGOs