Transforming lives from birth to death through inclusive civil registration and vital statistics systems

 
Mothers and children sit at a table during an outreach program to register infants.
Births and Deaths Registry, Ghana
Ghana’s Births and Deaths Registry conducts outreach program to register infants.

Imagine living a full life without leaving an official trace of your existence. This is the reality for millions of people worldwide whose births, marriages, divorces and deaths are never recorded or officially registered. The impact extends far beyond having a formal identity. Without birth registration, many do not have access to basic human rights: health care, education, protection from child marriage and more.

That’s where the Centre of Excellence for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems (CoE-CRVS) comes in. Established at IDRC in 2016, it is now housed at the United Nations Population Fund.

Ensuring no one is left behind 

The work of the CoE-CRVS is both essential and life changing because access to fundamental human rights, such as the right to a name and citizenship, has a cascading effect on individuals, families, communities and societies. These rights are key to connecting people with opportunities in life.

CRVS systems ensure that people experiencing vulnerabilities — such as girls and women, refugees, minorities, and LGBTQI+ communities — are still counted and not left behind. At the national level, a fragmented population data system results in an incomplete understanding of demographic realities, affecting planning for programs, public services and policies. Without such complete and reliable population data, the magnitude of society’s most profound problems remains unclear, making it difficult to develop targeted and impactful solutions. 

The CoE-CRVS takes a life-course approach to civil registration and vital statistics, generating evidence and building capacity to register every birth, marriage, divorce and death, while improving CRVS systems in low- and middle-income countries through direct technical assistance, capacity strengthening and knowledge sharing.

Advancing gender transformative CRVS systems

Women, children and marginalized populations are often invisible in CRVS systems. One in four children under age 5 is not registered after birth, and when they are, many do not have proof of registration. The registration of other life events is often not completed. For example, only 60% of marriages in Brazil in 2010 and 21% in Senegal in 2013 were officially registered. The gap disproportionately affects women, as the absence of a marriage certificate undermines their rights to property, inheritance and parental custody. For these reasons, the CoE-CRVS is integrating gender perspectives and the use of a life-course approach to CRVS. 

The centre promotes and advances CRVS systems as a foundation for gender equality and women’s empowerment. Through technical support, it supports national authorities to produce sex-disaggregated vital statistics from civil registration data. In Kenya, 47 county-specific fact sheets were developed by national authorities to enhance data-driven governance. These fact sheets increase the availability and accessibility of data for planning and monitoring at sub-national levels. Policymakers are expected to use the evidence from the fact sheets to improve their programming, planning and priority setting. 

Improving birth statistics and results in Colombia

In Colombia, parteras are the traditional birth attendants who serve as midwives in Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities, where formal health facilities are scarce and maternal mortality rates are two to four times the national average. Despite their deep-rooted cultural and ancestral knowledge, parteras have historically been excluded from official health and civil registration systems.

However, with funding from the CoE-CRVS, the Partera Vital Project equips parteras with digital handheld devices, which ensures that Afro-descendant and Indigenous women and their newborns are reflected in Colombia's official vital statistics for the first time.

The project is strengthening parteras’ associations, integrating them into health and statistics systems for better record keeping and improved health outcomes for women and newborns. The trained parteras contribute to more accurate data for channeling resources where they are needed. 

Ghana strengthens birth and death registration 

In Ghana, making every life count and counting every life has served as the guiding force behind the modernization of the civil registration and vital statistics practices. In 2020, the country introduced the Registration of Births and Deaths Act, 2020 (Act 1027), mandating the registration of all births, fetal deaths and overall deaths. By 2022, the birth and death registration system was decentralized, giving district registrars the power to register these events. An online registration and payment system was also introduced, eliminating barriers related to distance and travel, and particularly benefitting rural and remote communities.

The results were dramatic. While only 68.6% of births and 16.5% of deaths were registered in 2018, the proportion increased to 92.7% for births, and more than doubled to 37.8% for deaths in 2022. In addition to much higher registration numbers, the Ghana case is an important example of the possibilities that emerge with a robust registration system.  

Photo of Constance Clara Anani
Births and Deaths Registry, Ghana
Constance Clara Anani

“Vital statistics are more than data points,” explained Constance Clara Anani, head of Statistics, Research, Monitoring and Evaluation for Ghana’s Births and Deaths Registry. “CRVS data transforms numbers into actionable insights, driving health-care reforms and shaping policies to address challenges like hypertension and maternal health disparities.”

How does data visibility improve public health? In Ghana, the causes of death registry revealed hypertension as the leading cause of death from non-communicable diseases, prompting regional health authorities to improve detection and management of hypertension in the country. 

Similarly, when it was revealed that more than a quarter of the total births registered in four regions (Northern, Northeast, Oti and Savannah regions) occurred at home without a trained health attendant, the Ghana Health Service took action by assigning more midwives to those regions and other at-risk districts.

With technical support from the CoE-CRVS and a dedication to improving health outcomes, Ghana serves as an example of how strategic, intentional steps can ensure that every person’s identity and rights are recognized from birth.

“Inclusive governance begins with inclusive data. By documenting every birth and death, we can build policies that truly leave no one behind, ensuring that vital statistics continue to inform policies, attract investments and shape Ghana’s future for generations to come,” said Anani. 

Research to curb child marriage

Can civil registration alone help prevent child marriage? This is the question behind one CoE-CRVS-funded project that examined the link between CRVS and child marriage in Guatemala, Indonesia and Uganda, where child marriage is prevalent. Globally, an estimated 640 million girls and women alive today were married in childhood. In Indonesia, more than 25 million girls and women first married or were in a civil union before age 18, according to UNICEF. 

The researchers noted that because child marriage is driven by poverty, lack of education and inequality, most communities avoid registering such marriages. They found that most of these countries face difficulties enforcing marriage age regulations. Legislation will need to work hand in hand with CRVS and other data systems to curb child marriage.  

Only five years remain to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, including “legal identity for all” — one of the targets of SDG 16 on peace, justice and strong institutions. Evidence-based research and policymaking, combined with strategic steps at the country level, are critical to making every person visible within CRVS systems and ensuring they have the rights they deserve — from cradle to grave.