The CRVS Secretariat of the Cabinet Division, Government of Bangladesh organized the "International Conference on CRVS, 2018" on 23-25 January 2018 in Dhaka, Bangladesh. The conference featured discussions on e-government and public service delivery, improving registration of death and causes of death, as well as strengthening CRVS to support safe migration. It offered a platform to share and exchange CRVS related knowledge, experiences, innovations and ideas of different countries. The conference results will be taken forward to shape the further work of improving the CRVS system in Bangladesh. They will also be the foundation of future policy and research debates and increased knowledge sharing among South Asian countries. Aside from participants from national and sub-national agencies of the CRVS system in Bangladesh, the conference was also attended by representatives from Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Fiji, Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, as well as several development partner agencies active in supporting Bangladesh.

After 60 years the Nauruan Births Deaths and Marriages (BDM) Act of 1957 has been repealed. The new act enters into force in February 2018. The purpose of the new bill is to update the law and to cater for issues not covered in the BDM Act of 1957. Nauruan president Baron Waqa said with regard to the new bill: “It covers a number of matters that will augment the functions of the Births, Deaths and Marriages registry. It will ensure that the registry continues to be the trusted custodian of the life event records held by it. It will also ensure that the Republic has correct and up to date records” Among the most important changes are: The registrar’s responsibilities and that separate registers will be maintained was not explicitly stated in the old act. Now, the functions of the registrar were specified, which are to establish and maintain a separate register for: births, deaths, stillbirths, marriages, adoptions, change of names and national identity codes. This national identity codes will be newly established; the cabinet still needs to decide on regulations for national identity codes. With the new act the director of Medical Services will have the responsibility to notify the registrar of a child’s birth at a hospital in Nauru within 7 days. And if a person dies in a Nauruan hospital, the director of Medical Services shall notify the registrar immediately after the death. If a foreign child is born in Nauru and both parents are foreigners, the parents may register the birth of the child in Nauru, which was not provided for by the old act.

On the 18th and 19th of January 2018 the third meeting of the Bali Process Civil Registration Assessment Toolkit Technical Advisory Group took place in Bangkok. The purpose of the meeting was first, to undertake a technical review of the toolkit and secondly, to elaborate a program for the piloting of a part of the toolkit methodology within the Civil Registration administration of a Bali Process Member State. The purpose of the Toolkit is to help States improve how they register births, deaths and marriages of key populations (refugees, asylum seekers, stateless persons and persons of undetermined nationality) that occur on their territory. The overall goal of the Toolkit is to enable better protection and contribute to durable solutions for key populations by increasing levels of civil registration and documentation completeness among these population groups. The toolkit will contain a practical assessment methodology for States to identify gaps and barriers, as well as relevant technical and policy guidance based on international standards, recommendations and good practices, to support improvement efforts. The toolkit is expected to be published in the second half of 2018, and will include a pilot in one or more States in 2018. The technical advisory group has been established to review technical and policy aspects of the civil registration among key populations, in order to inform and oversee the development of the toolkit to ensure that it is relevant and actionable by Bali Process member states. The Regional Support Office (RSO) of the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime was established in 2012 to facilitate the work of the Regional Cooperation Framework that was endorsed by the Fourth Bali Process Regional Ministerial Conference in March 2011. The RSO aims to support and strengthen practical cooperation on refugee protection and international migration, including human trafficking and smuggling, border management, and other components of migration management in Asia and the Pacific.

The Vietnamese government has included CRVS improvements as an integral part of the National Action Plan for the implementation of the 2030 sustainable development agenda. The aim is to provide legal identification including birth registration by 2030 for all citizens in Vietnam. Particular attention will be paid to individuals living in mountainous regions, ethnic minorities and migrant people. Part of the measures to achieve this goal is the development and operation of an electronic civil status database in all registration offices. The full National Action Plan can be found here.

19 island countries in the Pacific are working together to build a single civil registration network, so that data on vital events are accurately captured and shared across their borders. The work of the Pacific Civil Registrars Network (PCRN) was featured on the website of GovInsider, a platform for public sector innovation. Pacific islanders are often highly mobile, meaning that they are born in one country and often migrate for jobs, healthcare and education, and die in another country, says Jeff Montgomery, New Zealand’s Registrar-General and GM of Births, Deaths, Marriages, Citizenship and Translations. As a result these events are registered as separate events in different countries and not linked up. According to Montgomery this creates inaccurate datasets for government planning. Therefore the 19 island countries in the Pacific are working together to build a single civil registration network, so that data on these vital events are accurately captured and shared across their borders. When complete, the Pacific civil registration network could neaten up loose ends left behind when an islander passes on. “If you die in one country but were born in another, your death will be notified to the birth country and therefore your birth certificate can be closed, your passport can be canceled, and your health information can be used for planning purposes,” Montgomery explains. The network is still in its early stages. Montgomery hopes to use cloud-based software for sharing data between governments in the future. This could be advantageous for smaller countries that may not have the resources to support their own online system. New Zealand has already established four data sharing agreements, either in place or in the final stages of drafting – with New South Wales in Australia, and the Cook Islands, Tokelau and Niue in the Pacific.