17 Feb 2014

Incomplete capturing of civil registration and vital statistics leads to the scandal of invincibility, where many people are born and their existence not documented throughout their lifetime.

The Vice President, Dr Ponatshego Kedikilwe said this on Monday, February 17, at the official opening of the ninth African Symposium on Statistical Development.

Dr Kedikilwe said over 100 developing countries did not have complete and functional civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS), despite their obvious and invaluable benefits.

He said this had resulted in failure to register over 40 million births, while an equal number of deaths globally were either not registered or their causes incorrectly classified.

Dr Kedikilwe expressed concern that the CRVS system in Africa still had profound weaknesses such as inadequate legal and institutional frameworks as well as operational inefficiencies, coupled with poor resourcing or budgetary constraints.

“This has resulted in incompleteness of CRVS in terms of coverage of the whole population and registration of events. These inadequacies subject a large number of the African people to what is often referred to as scandal of invisibility,” said Dr Kedikilwe.

He said the scandal of invincibility resulted in people being born without their existence being documented throughout their lifetime and eventually dying without being accounted for.

He added that countries that had the administrative capability to have credible CRVS in place were able to accord key rights to their citizenry, such as the right to a name, the right to vote and the right to own property.

“A complete CRVS is a precursor for effective governance and any impediments to it must be strongly combated,” he said.

Dr Kedikilwe said credible statistics generated through civil registration contributed to the formulation of evidence-based policies across sectors. He added that CRVS provided a body of empirical evidence required by governments and their development partners not only to evaluate progress of development projects and secure good governance, but also to prioritise allocations of scarce resources across competing needs.

“Unlike other sources of vital statistics the administrative data from civil registration systems enables production of statistics on population dynamics and health indicators on a continuous basis for the country as a whole and at local levels,” said Dr Kedikilwe.

The symposium has attracted over 600 delegates from 54 African countries and is aimed at enabling African countries to work together on statistical standards and methods to improve sector information systems at national and regional levels. ENDS