ESA/STAT/AC.219/8
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Region-wide Programme to Improve
Vital Statistics and Civil Registration
Systems
prepared by:
Margarita F Guerrero, Ph D
Regional Adviser on Statistics
What are Vital Statistics?
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Data, indicators, statistical summaries derived from
recording of—
• Births
• Deaths
• Causes of death
• Marriages
• Divorces
What are Gender Statistics?
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Data, indicators, statistics ...
• About women/girls and men/boys
– Sex-disaggregated
• About rights of women/girls
–
–
–
–
VAW
Reproductive health
Maternal mortality
Work, both paid and unpaid
•
•
Informal employment
Care work
Gender statistics: for what purpose?
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• State of ...
– Gender inequality
– Women’s rights
• How’s and why’s of gender-based disparities
• Evidence-based policies towards ...
– Gender mainstreaming
– Gender equality
– Gender justice
– Women’s liberation
Statistics on
MORTALITY
Vital Statistics
Civil Registration
Relating Mortality and Gender Statistics
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From records of deaths and causes of death … to
• Mortality rates– by sex and age
• Mortality rates by causes of death- by sex and
age
– Maternal mortality
– HIV-AIDs
– Other diseases
– Violence (?)
Better Vital Statistics …
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Recurring themes:
NSS and Statistics Development Partners


To improve the use of statistics for evidencebased decision-making
To develop and disseminate quality statistics
for inclusive and sustainable development
Civil Registration & Vital Statistics Systems
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Governance
Vital
Statistics
Human
Rights
Civil
Registration
Some Principles
Region-wide Capacity Building
Region-wide approach accounts for …
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Diversity in—
• Level of development of systems
• Strength of coordination among key
institutions
• Level of awareness of importance, use and
connection to rights
• Technical capacity
• Availability of resources and ranking of
priorities
… and looks for COMMON concerns
and challenges
… and approaches that work and/or can
be adapted across diverse situations
An Assumption– Increasingly …
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Governments and national statistical systems:
Point A: Know where they are

Assessing, monitoring and evaluating
Point B: Know where they want to be

Strategic planning, statistics development
and implementation plans
Point A: Challenges
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• Increasing awareness and political
commitment
• Strengthening legal framework, institutional
mandates and organization of work
• Improving coverage, completeness and
quality
• Wider and more effective dissemination of
data, analyses and use
Capacity Development—
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

Getting from point A to point B
Who does what and with whom?
External
Internal
Guiding Principles– Region-wide Approach
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• Responding to urgent development needs
• Supporting country commitment & plan
• Building on role of Regional Commission
– Take global initiatives and ‘regionalise’
– Intergovernmental forum
– Implement in partnership & coordination with …
• Differentiating regional from country specific
• Relying on integrated approach
• Aiming for “stepwise” & “spillover” effect
Strategies– Advocacy
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• High-level regional forum— intergovernmental
–
–
–
–
Strengthening legal frameworks
Improving national coordination
Obtaining sustained political commitment
Year/Decade for civil registration
• Developing and applying advocacy tools for
national-level advocacies
– Developing a business case for civil registration
and vital statistics improvement
Strategies– Knowledge
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• Standards, guidelines & tools
– Assessments
– Applying and adapting existing ones
– Filling in the gaps
• Knowledge-sharing
– Regional networking
Strategies– Technical Assistance
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• Advisory services– programmatic approach
• Training
– Developing training curricula and materials with
national training institutes
– In-country training
Strategies– Coordinated Support
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• Ongoing initiatives
–
–
–
–
–
–
WHO
Health Metrics Network
Knowledge hub– University of Queensland
UNICEF
UNFPA
PLAN International
• Facilitating South-South cooperation
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Getting from Point A to Point B:
Developing a framework for core
gender statistics, including:
health and mortality statistics
‘Engendered’
policies:
formulating &
monitoring; etc …
facilitates
production of
User Needs
Core Set of
Gender
Statistics
Capability
building
initiatives
delivers
determines
Required
capabilities to
produce the
statistics
Region-wide
Programme
Components
informs
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