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The Importance of Registering Births, Marriages and Deaths
[Centre of Excellence for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems]Why register births, marriages, and deaths? Nadya Kassam provides the answers in this interview. -
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Making Civil Registration Accessible to All
[Centre of Excellence for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems]This interview with Nicholas Oakeshott from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees explains why access to civil registration and vital statistics systems is critical. -
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Difference Between Birth Certificate and Certificate of Live Birth
[The Law Dictionary]This short piece provides a practical description of the difference between a birth certificate and a certificate of live birth. -
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Who and Where are the Uncounted Children? Inequalities in Birth Certificate Coverage Among Children Under Five Years in 94 Countries Using Nationally Representative Household Surveys
[International Journal for Equity in Health]This article examines wealth, urban/rural, and gender inequalities in birth certificate coverage in 94 countries.
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Democratic Governance, Citizenship and Legal Identity
[Inter-American Development Bank]This article argues the importance of legal identity for good governance. -
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Understanding Whose Births Get Registered: A Cross-sectional Study in Bauchi and Cross River States, Nigeria
[BioMed Central International Health and Human Rights ]This article examines actionable determinants of birth registration of children in Bauchi and Cross River states of Nigeria.
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Changes and Inequalities in Early Birth Registration and Childhood Care and Education in Vietnam: Findings from the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys, 2006 and 2011
[Global Health Action]This article analyzes data from the 2011 Vietnamese Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), linking birth registration with childhood care and education.
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Ending Child Marriage: A Guide for Global Policy Action
[International Planned Parenthood Federation ]This practical tool documents the special needs of child brides, and outlines the nature of the economic and social factors that reinforce the practice.
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Socioeconomic Determinants of Birth Registration in Ghana
[BioMed Central International Health and Human Rights ]This article examines the chances of a child born in Ghana between 2001 and 2006 obtaining legal status of identity using data extracted from the 2006 Ghana Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. -
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How the Government of Uganda Strengthened its CRVS System
[Centre of Excellence for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems]Find out how one Ugandan hospital allows new parents to leave with their child’s birth certificate in-hand. Gopalan Balagopal explains why this is an effective way to increase birth registration -
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Maternal Autonomy and Birth Registration in India: Who Gets Counted?
[PLOS One]This paper examines the effect of maternal socio-economic status in the household, such as their autonomy, ability, freedom and bargaining power, on child birth registration in India using the -
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Barriers to Birth Registration in Indonesia
[The Lancet]Empirical research on birth registration is lacking in many countries, including Indonesia. This study examines the correlates of birth registration in three of Indonesia's most impoverished and under -
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Incentives for Improving Birth Registration Coverage
[World Bank Group]A literature review of supply and demand factors that could affect birth registration coverage rates, particularly in the context of social programs. -
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Identity Documents, Welfare Enhancement, and Group Empowerment in the Global South
[The Journal of Development Studies]Having a birth certificate is a stepping stone to acquiring an array of rights and benefits, including other documents necessary to navigate in and outside of one’s home country. Despite a birth -
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Unregistered marriages – time to register calls for law reform?
[International Family Law Group]This article discusses religious marriages and the legal implications of registration practices. -
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Socioeconomic determinants of birth registration in Ghana
[BMC International Health and Human Rights 2015]This paper examines the chances of a child born in Ghana between 2001 and 2006 obtaining legal status of identity. -
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Colombia: A strategy to improve the registration and certification of vital events in rural and ethnic communities
[Bloomberg Philanthropies Data for Health Initiative]The report provides an overview of experiences from Colombia on working with communities to improve birth and eath registration. -
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Estimating the completeness of death registration: An empirical method
[PLOS one]This paper presents a novel empirical method to estimate completeness of death registration at the national and subnational levels. -
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History of the birth certificate: from inception to the future of electronic data
[Journal of Perinatology 32 (407-411)]A look at the evolution of birth certificates in the USA. As birth registration has moved from paper to electronic, the birth certificate's potential utility has broadened, yet issues with updating -
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Civil registration systems and vital statistics: Successes and missed opportunities
[The Lancet]This paper is a comprehensive and practical framework for assessment of the quality of vital statistics. With use of routine reports to the UN and cause-of-death data reported to WHO, we review the -
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Technological and Social Innovation in Mechanisms for timely Declaration of Births and Deaths of Populations in Nawa Region (Cote d’Ivore)
[European Scientific Journal]This paper focuses on new mechanisms for the timely registration of births and deaths in Côte d'Ivoire. Through the practical case of the Nawa people's region in the southwest of the country, this -
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Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) systems in low- and middle-income countries
[Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition]This supplement covers various aspects of how to strengthen civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems in low- and middle-income countries. Eight peer-reviewed manuscripts included in this -
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Birth registration and access to health care: an assessment of Ghana’s campaign success
[Bulletin of the World Health Organization]Incorporation of birth registration into community health care, health campaigns and mobile registration activities can reduce the indirect costs of birth registration, especially in poorer -
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Better Data for a Better World
[Centre of Excellence for CRVS Systems]This animated video explains why CRVS systems are important for ensuring legal identity for all and achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Recording vital life events such as birth, marriage -
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Boundless Potential
[Centre of Excellence for CRVS Systems]This animated video explains why well-functioning civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems are important for achieving gender equality. Recording vital life events such as birth
Our Resource Library provides access to curated resources related to CRVS systems, including research, tools, publications, CRVS eLearning course, our Expert Talks video series, and a glossary of terms and definitions.
A CRVS system is one that connects relevant data from the civil registry and the health information system for the purpose of producing vital statistics. In order to function well, CRVS systems depend on common elements. These are featured under a unique section of our library. Examples include resources that focus on training, assessments and evaluations, identity management, data security and privacy, information and communications technology, and more.