2017 ICT4D Conference

The births of more than 1 in 4 children under the age of 5 worldwide have not been recorded, which often carries a negative impact on their lives and realization of their rights well into adulthood. Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has the potential to provide transformative improvements in civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems based on its ability to extend registration coverage, standardise and streamline civil registration and vital statistics processes, integrate data from multiple systems and securely store data at scale, all in a cost-effective way. Plan International is leading a project that plans to implement Digital Birth Registrations within Africa and Asia.

Plan International is a core group member of the African Programme for the Accelerated Improvement of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (APAI-CRVS).

Within the framework of the 5 year (2016-2020) strategy and work programme of the APAI-CRVS, Plan International proposes to lead an initiative to develop a standards based open-source CRVS software platform, OpenCRVS.

Make OpenCRVS available as open-source software to provide countries with a freely available option for CRVS digitisation that is aligned with UN standards3, international best-practice and a rights-based approach.

Provide OpenCRVS documentation that allows countries to quickly and efficiently install, configure and rollout the software to support CRVS in a particular country context

Create training materials so that end-users and system administrators are able to maximize their effectiveness using OpenCRVS

This presentation will go over Plan’s long history as a leading expert on birth registration and present the current project plan for the OpenCRVS software platform. We hope to engage with the audience, share lessons and experiences and share valuable experience with conference participants about the future of digital CRVS.