Civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS)

Why it matters

Registration gives a person legal identity and access to services, and it gives a country the population and cause of death statistics it plans with [1]. Many births and deaths happen in or pass through a health facility, so the health sector is often the first to know. UNICEF reported in 2024 that 150 million children worldwide remain unregistered [2].

Key points

• The United Nations defines civil registration as the continuous, permanent, compulsory and universal recording of the occurrence and characteristics of vital events, under each country's law [1].
• Vital events include live births, deaths, fetal deaths, marriages and divorces [1].
• CRVS systems confirm legal identity, produce continuous population and health statistics, and reveal causes of death and health inequalities [1].
• Registration is the legal act of the civil registration authority; the health facility's role is accurate and timely notification of the event.

In Moana

Moana's maternal and child module registers each birth at the facility and links the baby's record to the mother's, which provides the accurate facility record that notification of a birth depends on.

Sources

1. CRVS: aiming for universal birth and death registration for universal health coverage, WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, accessed 2026
2. Birth registration steadily increases worldwide, but 150 million children still invisible, UNICEF, 2024