Strategies for Improving Civil Registration and
Vital Statistics system in Tanzania
5th December 2014
Victoria Philbert Mushi
Introduction
In Tanzania, like in many other developing
countries, most citizens have come into this
world and left without leaving a trace on official
records. The main reason has been weak law and
operational framework for compulsory, universal,
continuous and permanent of recording of vital
events in the country.
In the absence of a fully-functioning civil
registration system, citizens have remained
unrecorded and hence unrecognized by the
state.
A reliable CRVS system is a basic component
of good governance. The information
collected through the civil registration system
allows to identify a subset of the population
requiring intervention or services, such as
health care, education, social protection, as
well as humanitarian response in emergency
situations. Eventually, the systematically
registered vital events can facilitate access to
essential public services that every individual
is entitled to enjoy.
• In Tanzania , civil registration systems are the
responsibility of ministry of Justice and
Constitutional Affairs .RITA being the executive
Agency under that ministry is entrusted, among
other things, to ensure on behalf of the nation
that all births and deaths occurring in Tanzania
Mainland are accurately recorded at the earliest
opportunity.
• However, the rate or percentage of registration
home deaths has remained very low .The sticking
problem still remained that registration is yet to
reach down to the villages, which is the ultimate
level for the registration to become universal in
practice. Currently the registration centres are
situated at the district headquarters, not lower.
Home Deaths
•
Reporting of death information is an important component of the overall
information of civil registration and vital statistics.
•
Majority of developing countries including Tanzania, lack the appropriate system
and mechanism of capturing data of deaths information.
•
The information on cause of death has an important role to play; in legal,
administrative and statistical uses, however, this is still a challenge for home
deaths where Civil Registrars are not experts on medical field.
•
In 1967, the Twentieth World Health Assembly demanded the causes of death to
be entered on the medical certificate of cause of death and defined it as, “all those
diseases, morbid conditions or injuries which either resulted in or contributed to
death and the circumstances of the accident or violence which produced any such
injuries”. The purpose of the definition is to ensure that all the relevant
information is recorded and that the certifier does not select some conditions for
entry and reject others.
•
The definition does not include symptoms and modes of dying. May be this is the
reason why Health Facilities does not certify deaths upon arrival or death at
home
CURRENT DEATH AT HOME REGISTRATION PROCESS
• Research and study on the reporting of cause of death
through verbal Autopsy and get experience from other
countries
Deaths from unnatural
Informant report Death
Health facility
DEATHS
OUTSIDE
HEALTH
FACILITIES
causes
to the nearest WEO
Police
for postmortem
Deaths from
• Training
ofNatural
the staff to provide
knowledge andWEOskills
VEO issue introductory
issue introductory
Causes
to relative
letter
necessary for the efficientletterperformance.
REFUGEES,IDPs,
NOMADS ETC
NOT RECOGNISED BY LAW
• The law and regulations governing the vital statistics
system should clearly link the production of vital
statistics with the civil registration system. In other
words, the necessary basic data for vital statistics
NOT REGISTERED
should
originate from the civil registration system
(RITA) and continuously feed the vital statistics system
at NBS
RITA receive filled
District
Administrative
Secretary(DAS)
ABROAD
RITA
DAS register and issue certificate and
send return to RITA HQ quartely
forms and archive
National Bureu
of Statistics
(NBS) AND
OTHER
STAKEHOLDERS
NO COLLABORATION
Major bottlenecks in the current
business process.
According to the business process above, the following are
the bottlenecks
•
•
•
•
•
•
Registration is centralized.
Lack of awareness by the public
No proper procedure of reporting causes of deaths
Traditional and religious norms
System of registration is manual
No recording of deaths abroad or special group of
population such as Refugees, IDPs, etc
• No collaboration and coordination with Statistical bureau
and other stakeholders
PROPOSED DEATH AT HOME REGISTRATION PROCESS
DEATHS
OUTSIDE
HEALTH
FACILITIES
Deaths from other
causes
Deaths from Natural
Causes
Deaths on SHIP
Informant report Death
to the nearest WEO
WEO/Informant
complete Form/VERBAL
AUTOPSY
Ship Captain issue
notification
DEATH ABROAD
Health Facility
for postmortem
Registration and
Certification
Relative / Head of institution
declares death to the nearest
WEO/HF for registration and
certification
Deaths within Military Camp,
Refugees, IDPs,Communal
dwellings, etc
District
Executive
Director(DED)
Police
Quarter Report
If error found
return to service
point
Error
verification?
Embassy/Informant
Complete Form
Registration and
Certification
DED receive the filled form from the
registration center and send to RITA
HQ
MOFA receive the filled
register from the registration
center and send to RITA
RITA
NBS desk at RITA
SYSTEMS OF KEY
STAKEHOLDERSNBS,
MOHSW,NIDA,N
EC
Database
System
Error
verification?
RITA receive filled
forms and archive
Analyze data and
disseminate
Strategies to Improve CRV
• …..”One of the best ways to help
the living is by counting the
dead-Prabat Jha”
• Helping the living however, cannot stop at
counting the dead. We we must proceed to
establish who died and what they died of.
• Therefore it is important to come up with
effective and planned strategies for improvement
of the same
Inorder to have an efficient and complete CRVS,
data should flow this way
Where do we want to go?
The vision that will guide all actions and
activities of the CR functions of RITA in
improving Home Deaths is “All home deaths
are counted”. It is an answer to the question:
Where do we want to be in future. taking
cognizance of the current state of the system
and points out the direction how all home
deaths should captured.
The mission for improvement of home Deaths
strategic plan is:
“ Helping the living however, cannot stop at counting
the dead. We must proceed to establish who died and
what they died of to safeguard rights of all and inform
evidence-based decisions f.”
The mission statement defines the fundamental
purpose of registering home deaths, describing why it
should exist and what has to be done to achieve the
vision of the strategy.
RITA is striving to achieve full registrations of
Births and Deaths in Tanzania Mainland’ and
that the institution now has a history of
proactive initiatives to improve the
registration system with the ultimate objective
of reaching down as far as possible to the
grassroots of the Tanzania community in the
villages and urban areas
The following are the strategies to Improve
CRVS
• To re look the Law and decentralize
registration to the grass root level
• Establish and enhance interoperable ICT
infrastructure and systems
• Invest in multi-sectoral CRVS skills and
capabilities icluding researches and training
on use of verbal autopsy.
• Collaboration and coordination with other cr
departments and statistic bureau.
• Roll out new roles and responsibilities for
CRVS management
• Advocate and promote awareness to the
public on the importance of registering home
deaths and the importance of giving out
proper information to help come up with
probable cause of death.
Thank you