CENTRE OF EXCELLENCE LE CENTRE D’EXCELLENCE for CRVS Systems sur les systèmes ESEC Compendium of Good Practices: Harnessing Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Systems in Conflict, Emergencies, and Fragile Settings Published by the Centre of Excellence for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems. PO Box 8500 Ottawa, ON, Canada K1G 3H9 [email protected] www.CRVSsystems.ca © International Development Research Centre 2021 The research presented in this publication was carried out with financial and technical assistance from the Centre of Excellence for CRVS Systems. Housed at the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), it is jointly funded by Global Affairs Canada and IDRC. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent those of Global Affairs Canada, IDRC, or its Board of Governors. An electronic version of this compendium is available at CRVSsystems.ca/fragility Contents I Contents Harnessing Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Systems in Conflict, Emergencies, and Fragile Settings – Overview .........................................................................1 Building Resilient CRVS Systems: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic and Other Emergencies ....11 Civil Registration: Maintaining International Standards in Emergencies ............................... 43 Applying a “Systems Lens”: CRVS and Fragility in the Digital Age ......................................63 Where There Is No CRVS: Counting and Registering Deaths in Conflict, Emergencies, and Fragile Settings ....................................................................................91 Alternative Information Sources on Deaths in Brazil in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic .......123 The Burial of Unidentified People in Rio de Janeiro: The Disappearance of People in the State Bureaucracy ................................................................................ 145 Strategies for Dealing with the Challenges of COVID-19 to Ecuador’s Civil Registration System ...... 163 COVID-19 and CRVS in New Zealand: The Show Must Go On ........................................ 183 The Role of CRVS in Estimating COVID-19-related Excess Deaths in South Korea .....................191 Documenting Life and Death: Women’s Experiences During Conflict in Syria and Iraq ................207 Mitigating the Impact of Natural Hazards on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Systems: The Case of Vanuatu .................................................................................231 II CRVS in Conflict, Emergencies, and Fragile Settings ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was developed by the Centre of We are indebted to the authors who drafted the Excellence for Civil Registration and Vital Statistics papers featured in this collection: Carla AbouZahr, (CRVS) Systems in partnership with Open Data Gustavo Pedroso de Lima Brusse, Raquel Watch. The project was conceived and initiated Chrispino, Martin Clutterbuck, Irina Dincu, by Irina Dincu and Nomthandazo Malambo and Carah Figueroa, Flávio H. M. de A. Freire, carried to completion with Deirdre Appel and Carmen Sant Fruchtman, Marcos R. Gonzaga, Shaida Badiee from Open Data Watch. Team Vicente Andres Taiano Gonzalez, Lauren Harrison, members who also contributed their time and Eunkoo Lee, Seokmin Lee, Benuel Lenge, expertise include Elettrra Baldi, Kristin Corbett, Everton E. C. Lima, Christine Linhart, Laura Holly Laurenzio, Heidi Monk, and Amelia Pittman. Monzón Llamas, Cláudio Machado, Vinícius Souza Maia, Gloria Mathenge, Jeff Montgomery, Srdjan We would like to thank Irina Dincu for leading the Mrkić, Daniel Cobos Muñoz, Bernardo L. Queiroz, technical portion of this work from its conception, Tanja Brøndsted Sejersen, Joemela Simeon, Anna through to the technical review of papers. We Socha, Liliana Suchodolska, Ana Janet Sunga, and also thank Ann Livingston and Lois Park for Alexandre Trece. supporting the technical review and providing advice and strategic input throughout. We thank Finally, we would like to thank H3 Creative Design Montasser Kamal and Nomthandazo Malambo for their contributions to design and layout and for their technical reviews. Plainly Speaking for their invaluable editing work. Harnessing Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Systems in Conflict, Emergencies, and Fragile Settings OVERVIEW INTRODUCTION last on policymakers’ list of priorities, which puts the information and rights of entire generations at The first two decades of the 21st century saw a risk. For example, in a case where a Syrian couple significant increase in crises and emergencies lacks a marriage registration, the husband’s death due to conflict, climate, and disease. Today, in the conflict and the pregnant wife’s flight would as we continue to experience the COVID-19 prevent the woman from registering the children pandemic, no country or statistical system has born of that marriage with Syrian authorities. In been left untouched. Despite the hardships, life many contexts like this, a single mother cannot in conflict, emergency, and fragile situations goes register the child or transmit her nationality, which on – people are born, marry, divorce, and die. In bars the child from acquiring their nationality later, these contexts, civil registration and identification further complicating their potential return to Syria. are vitally important, even as significant strains are placed on these systems. The hazards faced The 21st century has also seen the effects of by people in conflict, emergency, and fragile climate change hitting countries that are the contexts could weaken or destroy entire civil most vulnerable to extreme weather events. registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems In particular, small island countries face a very and archives. This would prevent people real risk of disappearance. Even in less drastic from accessing basic services guaranteed by circumstances, records are at risk of disappearing fundamental rights – the right to an identity, if a natural disaster occurs, making it difficult the right to a name, and so on. Access to these to account for deaths and to mitigate the services is critical; people rely on them for consequences of these disasters. In all these everything from humanitarian aid to health care, situations, it is critical that governments have education, and job training. robust disaster risk reduction plans in place that protect civil registration records. Protecting CRVS Conflicts and natural disasters pose a risk for the systems must be part of each country’s climate wholesale destruction of identification archives, change mitigation and adaptation plans to ensure such as Côte d’Ivoire experienced during its civil that natural disasters do not leave multiple war.1 This risk is compounded by the fact that in generations without access to rights and services. these crisis situations, CRVS systems are often 1 World Bank. 2016. ID4D Country Diagnostic: Côte d’Ivoire. id4d.worldbank.org/sites/id4d.worldbank.org/ files/2018-04/Cote%20d%27Ivoire_ID4D_Diagnostic_Web040618.pdf 2 CRVS in Conflict, Emergencies, and Fragile Settings Data are also critical to emergency responses. INTRODUCING THE COMPENDIUM Accurate and timely data support governments OF PRACTICE and stakeholders such as NGOs and foreign donors to effectively deliver services and aid in Since 2016, the Centre of Excellence for CRVS the wake of an emergency such as COVID-19. Systems has been working with countries Data also contribute to strengthening governance throughout the world to strengthen and improve in fragile settings and protecting those who their CRVS systems. As well as lending technical are the most vulnerable. As the United Nations assistance and support to its partners, the Centre High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has been a globally recognized conveyor, bringing has reported, the COVID-19 crisis is having an together a diverse range of stakeholders working unprecedented socioeconomic impact on people in this field to discuss, debate, and make progress. around the world. This is hitting vulnerable In February 2018, the Centre, in partnership with populations, such as the forcibly displaced and the World Health Organization and UNICEF, co- the stateless, even harder. While a full picture hosted the first global meeting on CRVS, Making has yet to be established, UNHCR estimates the Invisible Visible: CRVS as a Basis to Meeting that global forced displacement surpassed the 2030 Agenda, in Ottawa. 80 million by mid-2020; the refugee count has Two years later, in February 2020, the Centre, grown to 23.6 million.2 Even before the pandemic, Open Data Watch, and the UN Population Fund displaced people and the stateless struggled to convened another conference – ConVERGE: obtain legal identity and work permits and get Connecting Vital Events Registration and Gender access to formal employment and social safety Equality. The two-day discussions highlighted nets. In particular, refugees faced (and still face) themes similar to those examined at the 2018 additional legal and practical barriers to basic conference and reinforced the need to explore rights and services. CRVS data are essential CRVS in conflict, emergency, and fragile contexts for informing policymakers as they address more specifically. Even though the need for humanitarian crises, respond to emergencies, and research into effective CRVS practices in conflict, provide for a displaced population. Together with emergency, and fragile contexts exists, the local outreach, data-driven decisions can reduce evidence