APAC governments commit to closing CRVS gap by 2030

Governments of Asian and Pacific nations have committed to improving the coverage of their birth registration, civil registration and vital statistics initiatives in an effort to meet UN Sustainable Development Goal target 16.9.

Tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions of people in the Asia-Pacific region are still not accounted for in civil registration and vital statistics systems, according to figures from the United Nations. This means governments cannot deliver benefits to them, or plan for their future, and in many cases, they will struggle for recognition of their basic legal and human rights.

The size of the gap and how to close it were addressed at the Third Ministerial Conference on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok this week.

SDG 16.9 targets universal legal identity including birth registration by 2030. The UN estimates that 850 million people around the world have no legal proof of their identity.

APAC countries recognized a need for urgent improvement to meet that goal when they launched the “Asian and Pacific CRVS decade” initiative in 2014. A new report from the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) shows a mix of progress and frustrating inertia in the interim.

The ESCAP “Get everyone in the picture” report notes a UNICEF estimate that 14 million infants in the APAC region had their first birthday in 2024 without their birth having been registered. Progress has been significant with the number of children under 5 who’s births are unregistered declining 62 percent from 135 million in 2012 to 51 million in 2024.

“These numbers are more than statistics, they represent lives without legal recognition and families left without support,” says UN ESCAP Executive Secretary Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana.

The report also details the progress on death registration, which has reached 90 percent in 30 countries as of 2024. Birth registration has hit 90 percent in 29 countries.

ESCAP also explores the resilience and inclusivity of CRVS systems, and a Ministerial Declaration from the conference calls for universal and responsive digitally enabled CRVS systems that have both of those characteristics.

Article Topics

APAC  |  birth registration  |  civil registration  |  CRVS  |  death registration  |  digital identity  |  legal identity  |  SDG 16.9  |  United Nations