Survey and Analysis of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Practices and Challenges in Tanzania

Abstract

The Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) agenda has a wide scope. It covers the registration of vital events, like births, marriages and deaths, and the use of this to produce statistics. The registration often has immediate benefits for the persons who are registered, by giving them an identity and the access and right to public services. It is also useful for the government as a basis for evidence-based policy and planning and, when adequately implemented, CRVS can be a means to keeping track of inhabitants, such as potential tax payers. Registration of vital events provides a powerful source for producing statistics, as the collected data can give a more detailed evidence on sub-national areas than it is possible to obtain from sample surveys, and more frequently than population censuses can do. This is crucial for national policy-making, like identifying the needs for investments in infrastructure, setting priorities in the education and health sectors, and for land ownership and tenure. Many Tanzanians are born and die without leaving a trace in any official legal records or statistics. This is because Tanzania does not have functioning civil registration and vital statistics systems that can adequately account for the births, deaths and other vital events that happen in a country. This has been referred to as the scandal of invisibility. Tanzania cannot fulfill its dream unless we know who we are, where we live, work and play and what we need to do for the improvement of our living conditions. Births, marriages, divorces and deaths are all vital events that must be recorded. Developing CRVS requires cooperation of a wide range of stakeholders. To achieve this, Tanzania needs to have the political will to establish a uniform system. Furthermore, practical challenges such as increasing the coverage, digitizing the registers and linking the systems, have to be appropriately addressed. The full value of CRVS first becomes apparent when registers are used for public administration and contribute to planning. With a few exceptions, Tanzania is in need of substantial improvement and development in civil registration and vital statistics. The point of entry of this document is to review the current status of civil registration and vital statistics collection in Tanzania. Many of the challenges to civil registration and vital statistics are discussed and proposed tentative solutions to some of them.