WESTERN ASIA WORKSHOP ON STRATEGIES FOR ACCELERATING THE IMPROVEMENT OF CIVIL REGISTRATION AND VITAL STATISTICS SYSTEMS

20-24 June, 1993 Damascus

CONCLUSIONS OF THE WORKSHOP

The workshop made the following proposals:

1. The establishment and development of civil registration and vital statistics systems in countries and areas of ESCWA region that have not adopted these systems yet, and improving those in existence, benefiting from the experiences of other countries in the region and from those more advanced countries. For this purpose, countries should review all relevant legislation and regulations, inter alia.

2. Establishing national committees on civil registration and vital statistics in each one of the ESCWA countries or areas to exercise the authority of designing plans of work and strategies concerning the establishment and development of the Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems from the organisational, administrative and technical viewpoints, and competent authorities.

3. Calling upon ESCWA countries and areas to form a high level regional committee in the field of civil registration and vital statistics, to be assigned with offering and facilitating the exchange of experience and information in these fields. (The hosting country of this workshop should invite this committee to hold its first meeting, in order to set up regulations defining its tasks and functions).

4. Consulting the International Programme for Accelerating the Improvement of Vital Statistics and Civil Registration Systems, in order to draw relevant national plans of work, taking into consideration:

The automation of the activities of civil registration and vital statistics;
Reliance on the civil registration records as main sources of vital statistics, benefiting there from in the fields of planning, programming, research and assessment;
Focusing on the training of personnel working in the field of civil registration and vital statistics on the use of the most modern means in this field, raising the standard of their efficiency and providing them with incentives and privileges;
Protection of civil registration data, since it has great importance in the lives of individuals and society, and safeguarding its secrecy and safety;
Benefiting from the output of an experimental project on a limited scale, in order to assess and rectify the stages of implementation on a larger scale;
Taking measures to secure the highest degree of comprehensiveness in registration, particularly through the promotion of statistical awareness simplification of registration procedures and setting up increasing numbers of registration offices; and
Stressing the importance and necessity of monitoring the causes of death in certificates reporting each event.

5. The increase of financial and technical contributions by regional and international organizations and developed countries in this field, with the aim of improving civil registration and vital statistics systems, particularly in countries with urgent needs.

6. Calling upon ESCWA to play a prominent role in the provision of information and technical expertise in areas concerning civil registration and vital statistics systems to ESCWA member states or areas.

7. Enabling the Palestinian Arab people in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to obtain accurate and comprehensive data about vital statistics and demographic statistics therein.

8. Requesting the United Nations through the appropriate channels to assign an international year (between 1993 and 2000) as the year of civil registration and vital statistics.

9. Calling upon the countries that do not have submitted a comprehensive assessment of the situation of their civil registration and vital statistics to work on a reassessment of their situation according to the document entitled “Review and Assessment of the National System of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (WAW/CRVS/93/6), in order to facilitate the introduction of necessary reforms.