UN, int’l agencies seek action for universal civil registration

MANILA, Philippines - The United Nations, governments and other development agencies have called for global action to ensure that all births, deaths and causes of deaths are registered.

At the first Global Summit on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) in Bangkok, Thailand on April 18 and 19, countries were urged to “remove barriers to universal civil registration, including outdated laws, weak infrastructure, poor training of staff and inadequate funding.”

 â€œImproving civil registration systems is critical to improving health services,” said Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, assistant director-general for health systems and innovation at the World Health Organization (WHO) and executive secretary of the Health Metrics Network (HMN).

“When we know how many children are born, how many people die and what the principal causes of their death are, we know better where to prioritize health investments,” Kieny said.

Sun-ichi Murata, deputy secretary-general of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), said CRVS systems “are a fundamental function of government.”

“The registration of births, adoptions, marriages, divorces and deaths is necessary for safeguarding the human, legal, economic, social, cultural and democratic rights to which every person is entitled,” Murata said.

Without a birth certificate, he said, “individuals face challenges going to school, seeing the doctor, accessing social protection and participating in public life.”

It is estimated that more than 200 children worldwide have not had their birth registered while around 800 countries do not have well-functioning civil registration systems to document births and deaths, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.

The most scarcely recorded information is cause of death, denying governments the ability to track patterns in health and mortality.

Only one in four people lives in a country that registers over 90 percent of births and deaths.

 â€œChildren have to be counted to count, as far as their rights are concerned, but millions of children are not registered at birth,” said the global head of child protection programs for the UN Children’s Fund, Susan Bissell.

“This deprives each one of an identity and the crucial birth certificate which is literally a child’s passport to benefits such as education and welfare programs, and a shield to help protect him/her from trafficking, child labor, or other forms of abuse.”

The summit was an offshoot of a resolution adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva last March that seeks action for universal registration at birth of all individuals to protect the right of every person to recognition.

The WHO and HMN organized the summit in collaboration with ESCAP, UNICEF and other UN and civil society partners.