Strengthening Civil Registration & Vital Statistics (CRVS) Mozambique-Intro of New Approaches for Community-based Death Registration

ln low-income settings, such as in many Sub-Saharan African countries, CRVS systems are often weak. In fact, it is estimated that only 1% of the deaths in low-income countries are reported with information on causes of death. Given its multidisciplinary nature, requiring strong governance and the involvement of multiple stakeholders, the strengthening of CRVS systems represent major undertakings with cross-sector implications in policy, financing, technology or legal domains to mention a few. It is therefore essential to assure that interventions strengthening CRVS systems, given their complexity and far-reaching implications, stand on solid evidence for action and robust implementation monitoring and evaluation that can maximize their impact.

The collaboration between Jembi Health Systems, MOASlS/UEM (Eduardo Mondlane University) and the Swiss TPH drawn on the complementary expertise of these institutions. The Mozambican partners have several years’ experience in designing, developing and implementing information systems at national level, including information technology components within the Mozambican health sector; they are providing support to the hospital mortality register since its inception and facilitated the creation of high level coordination mechanism for CRVS, the IVS WG (Inter-institutional Vital Statistics Working Group), which they are members of. The Swiss TPH provides a thriving environment for high level scientists to perform research in a broad range of international health topics.

This combination of local and international experience, and implementation and research capacity constitutes good ground for a joint initiative that can make best use of research and international evidence in CRVS. Therefore, a joint workshop is hereby proposed for representatives of both organizations to jointly conceptualize a realistic, rigorous and ambitious project, making use of the mutual understanding and trust that can only be achieved through a live project design workshop.

The workshop will entail:

• Exchanging on the partner’s capacities, portfolio and strategic interests;
• Reaching a shared understanding of the strengths and the gaps of CRVS in Mozambique, and achieving a shared vision on how to address those gaps;
• Discussing on the state of the art and good practices in registration of deaths at the community level in low-income settings and potential applicability to the Mozambican context;
• Defining scope for a community death registration project to be jointly implemented;
• Discussing on project implementation approaches and critical research questions;
• Agreeing on project management and partner collaboration mechanisms.

-Goncalo Castro, Health Informatics Specialist, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel
-Dr. med. Roberta Pastore, Senior HIS Specialist, Jembi Health Systems NPC, Mozambique