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ESA/STAT/AC.219/8

Region-wide Programme to Improve Vital Statistics and Civil Registration Systems

prepared by:Margarita F Guerrero, Ph DRegional Adviser on Statistics

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What are Vital Statistics?

Data, indicators, statistical summaries derived from recording of—

• Births• Deaths• Causes of death• Marriages• Divorces

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What are Gender Statistics?

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

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Gender statistics: for what purpose?

• 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

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Relating Mortality and Gender Statistics

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 (?)

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Better Vital Statistics …

To improve the use of statistics for evidence-based decision-making

To develop and disseminate quality statistics for inclusive and sustainable development

Recurring themes:

NSS and Statistics Development Partners

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Human Rights

Civil Registration

Vital Statistics

Governance

Civil Registration & Vital Statistics Systems

Some Principles

Region-wide Capacity Building

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Region-wide approach accounts for …

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

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An Assumption– Increasingly …

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

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Point A: Challenges

• 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

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Capacity Development—

Getting from point A to point B Who does what and with whom?

InternalExternal

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Guiding Principles– Region-wide Approach

• 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

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Strategies– Advocacy

• 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

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Strategies– Knowledge

• Standards, guidelines & tools– Assessments– Applying and adapting existing ones– Filling in the gaps

• Knowledge-sharing– Regional networking

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Strategies– Technical Assistance • Advisory services– programmatic

approach• Training– Developing training curricula and materials

with national training institutes– In-country training

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Strategies– Coordinated Support • 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

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User Needs

Core Set of Gender

Statistics

Required capabilities

to produce the statistics

Region-wide Programme Component

s

Capability building

initiatives

determines

informsdelivers

facilitates production of

‘Engendered’ policies:

formulating & monitoring; etc

…