Civil registration and vital statistics for monitoring the progress made in implementing Agenda 2063 and the 2030 Agenda for sustainable development

Abstract

African countries are required to report their progress on the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063 in an integrated manner. Many countries are in the process of aligning the global and continental development goals with their national development priorities, which requires a large amount of data and efforts to harmonize and integrate the diverse data requirements into their country’s development plans. The realization of both the 2030 Agenda and Agenda 2063 requires the registering of every vital event and the collection, compilation, production and dissemination of statistics relating to the events in a regular and continuous manner in order to guide policy and inform the planning process. Using vital statistics also enable all stakeholders to track progress and make any adjustments necessary to ensure transparency and mutual accountability. The recent monitoring results of the Africa program on accelerated improvement of civil registration and vital statistics systems show that many countries in the region have national identity systems that provide identity documents to their citizens. Some of the countries have a computerized identification database that assigns the individual with a unique identity number. Only a few countries, however, have their identification database linked to the civil registration system.