Description: The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) carried out a capacity development mission to the Maldives to accelerate progress towards the production of core international migration statistics in the country as part of ongoing support under the DA 13 project 'Administrative data for disaggregated Sustainable Development Goals indicators in Africa, Asia and the Pacific and Latin America'. The mission consisted of a three-day workshop, 10-12 December 2024, co-organized with the Maldives Bureau of Statistics (MBS) and hosted by Maldives Immigration. The objectives of the workshop were to: familiarize MBS and relevant administrative data producers in the national statistical system (NSS) with the revised conceptual framework on international migration and temporary mobility statistics, discuss steps necessary for integrating administrative data sources across the NSS for the production of migration statistics, and examine available data and metadata across data producers, highlighting discrepancies and methods to harmonize variables. Following the workshop, a high-level meeting on 16 December with the leadership of MBS and Maldives Immigration endorsed the way forward, including the finalization of an MoU governing data sharing. The training underscored the importance of inter-agency cooperation to enhance the quality, timeliness and accuracy of migration data for improved policymaking.
Description: Global Health Advocacy Incubator’s (GHAI) Data for Health Team, co-hosted a week of civil registration and vital statistics consultations in the Maldives with partners from Vital Strategies, Imagine Law and UNESCAP. The first two days of the workshop which were led by Imagine Law, focused on legal review and reform of the CRVS system, engaging CRVS stakeholders in discussions on a draft CRVS bill for Maldives. The remaining two days of the workshop focused on CRVS budget advocacy and leveraging domestic financing to support CRVS system strengthening. ESCAP also presented the results of the Business Process Improvement (BPI) work it supported in the Maldives, as a basis for informing focus areas for budget advocacy. The workshop engaged over 40 participants from the Department of National Registration, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Home Affairs, National Centre for Information Technology, Local Government Authority, and representatives from Atoll Councils.