Reoprt for Group II Organization, Management and Operation of Civil Registration & Vital Statistics systems

1. Reoprt for Group IIOrganization, Management and Operation of Civil Registration & Vital Statistics systems 7th Africa Symposium on Statistical Development (ASSD) Cape Town, South Africa 19 – 20 January 2012

2. General Background • Group two looked into the organization, Management and operation of both CR and VS. • Countries presented were Niger, Morocco, Swaziland, Kenya and South Africa. • Similarities in terms o the organization (MoHA and NSO) set up as well as the operational aspect.

3. Organization • All countries presented have indicated that they do have organizations/department/units which are responsible for the civil registration events and vital stats compilation. • Civil registration (births, deaths and marriages) falls under the ministry of Home Affairs in the case of Niger, Morocco, South Africa and Swaziland, whereas in Kenya it is a Semi-Autonomous Government Agency that deals with the CR.

4. Organization (cont.) • Only South Africa reported that certification of birth and causes death are the responsibility of the Ministry of Health; • All countries have indicated that they have a department/unit dealing with the compilation of vital stats events within their NSOs. The NSOs get the information from ministries of Home Affairs, Health, Justice and process and disseminate VS.

5. Organization (cont) • MoHAregister the births, death and marriages in most o the five countries with exception of Kenya where marriages are handled by the Attorney General Office; • Divorces in South Africa are handled by the Ministry of Justice; • For almost the cases the CR system Centralized;

6. Management • In all countries Coordination with other stakeholders appears essential and some times is difficult; • The management system is similar in almost all countries with to many stakeholders (MoH, MoHA, NSOs, Justice…)

7. Operational • Morocco has a scanning system to capture data on CR and also the system is automated to ensure that every citizen is able to request national documents through internet where ever they are; • The majority of the countries dealing, yet, with manual processing of records (except Morocco).

8. Operational (cont) • Functions are at different levels of the all countries, thus provinces, regions, districts and/or constituencies up to community level. • For example, Kenya had reported that the registration of vital events relies on the Registration Agencies who notify the events whenever they happen in their communities. • In addition Kenya has adopted a community-based system of civil registration, means that wherever a birth or death occur within an areas it is the responsibility of the community in that particular area to give the notification and registration of that birth or death.

9. Operational (cont) • All countries have indicated having the legal frameworks in place for CRVS to enforce the systems, the law requires registrations to be done in a specific period of time, if not then a fine is effected, in the case of Niger. On the Vital Stats the law has mandated these institutions to compile statistics from the vital events; • All countries reported having two types of registration – registration of new/current births which is done within a period of 12 months and late registration done after one year.

10. Limitations and problems • Although the structure exists, most of them indicated lack of capacity in terms of number of staff required to carry out the operation as well as knowledge; • Lack of awareness on the importance of registration and vital stats ; • High staff turnover in the case of SA

11. Operational • Lack of funding and equipment (Swaziland); • Out dated laws for both CRVS hence not able to address current operations effectively; • No monitoring and evaluation to see to it that information is recorded in a proper manner; • Niger reported the system (CR) does not cover the whole country: • No IT hence the system is not automated

12. Operation • In the case of South Africa - shortage of storage of documents and this has harden the retrieval of documents - taking too long. • There is no control over collection of information and data processing for births and marriages hence experiencing content errors and omissions of some information during registration of events. • No mechanism put in place to verify records received from the Department of Home Affairs or Department of Health and data is affected by misreporting and insufficient reporting of causes of death information. Manual data processing for mortality and causes of death and divorces in terms of coding causes of death, occupation and industry.

13. Efforts in overcoming the limitations and problems • These differ from country to country – depends on where they are with their systems in terms of progress.

14. Recently accomplished • Niger: New law enacted and accompanying activities • Morocco: has introduced a programme ofsoftwareto digitise all certificates ever issued (around 45 million) and this was already tested; • Swaziland: Purchased mobile offices to shorten travelling long distances to service sites and also to reduce overcrowding of applicants at regional offices • Introduced registration of new-borns in government maternity facilities in order to reduce late registration of births and this was made possible by support from UNICEF.

15. Recently accomplished (cont) Kenya: • Creating Demand for Birth Certificates by involving the Ministry of Education - has put a mechanism in place to demand a birth certificate at all levels of school admission and during registration for all national examinations. Sensitization and Training of Registration Agents and Community Leaders to carry out mobilization campaign in their communities. • Other registration agents including health workers to sensitize families to report the occurrence of births and death;

16. Recently accomplished (cont) South Africa: • Set up a National and Sub nation Steering Committee; • Preparing applications forms with barcode for scanning purposes.

17. Currently on progress • Enlarge the Pilot phase for all country • Extend the registration of new babies in maternity health facilities from 8 to 11 sites in order to strengthen current events registration • CR has planned to collaborate with NSO to produce the publication on vital stats.

18. Currently on progress • Mobile phone technology to improve the registration of births and deaths – being tested, and the aim is to show that infrastructural barriers that hamper these registrations could be overcome by the use of mobile phone technology in the case of Kenya. • A Web-based Civil Registration System to automate the operations of the department is in process which will enable the office to create a database for operationalizing the National Population Register

19. Way Forward • Way Forward Way Forward • Niger has a programme in place for statistical system - assistance from EU • Capacity building of staff at all levels

20. Conclusions • In recent years in all the countries there are considerable efforts to improve and modernize registration systems. • All countries pointed the fact that more than one National Institutions has a role in CRVS – Hence the need to establish a coordination tool at National level; • All countries, except one, pointed to serious lack of funding and that some activities are funding by international organizations which is not sustainable in the long run – Hence the need for all government to commit to adequate and regular funding of CRVS; • Almost all countries pointed out that the registration at the local level suffer of inadequate number of qualified officers – Hence the need to reinvest immediately in capacity building.