Over the years, a number of meetings and conferences on civil registration and vital statistics have been held in different regions of the world under various sponsorships. Almost all of these conferences have resulted in recommendations for the improvement of different civil registration procedures and methods. This is a compilation of those recommendations classified under various subject headings, and indicate the range of subject matter coverage in those conferences.

Although there are some regional differences in the problems, the basic problems in the developing countries are incomplete registration coverage and poor quality of collected information. The deterrents to improvement are inadequate funding and the lack of understanding and appreciation by the public of the importance of civil registration.

The articles summarizes recommendations from those meetings and conferences. The article is technical report No. 18 of the International Institute for Vital Registration and Statistics (IIVRS), published in 1982.