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When a child is born in Cameroon, Mozambique, or Nigeria today, the simple act of documenting that birth, once unreliable or even neglected, is increasingly becoming routine.
Behind that shift is a global push to modernize civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS) systems, championed in part by Bloomberg Philanthropies through its Data for Health initiative.
The implications for public health across Africa are profound.
“Since 2015, the Data for Health initiative has helped 65 countries modernize how they collect and use public health data,” the Bloomberg Philanthropies Annual Report 2024–2025 notes.
“In 2023, Cameroon passed new legislation to improve birth and death registration – an example of the systemic changes needed to close the global data gap.”
This quiet revolution of counting every birth, recording every death, and tracking the causes in between is reshaping how African countries plan, fund, and deliver healthcare.
Without accurate data, the health sector is flying blind.
With it, governments can allocate resources wisely, respond to disease trends early, and protect the most vulnerable.
Why Vital Statistics Matter
Civil registration is more than bureaucracy. It’s a building block for everything from maternal health to epidemic response.
When births and deaths go unrecorded, entire populations are effectively invisible, left out of national planning, health investments, and basic protections.
“In many low- and middle-income countries, the majority of deaths are never officially recorded,” the report emphasizes.
“This leaves governments in the dark about what is killing people and where to target resources.”
That lack of information is not just an inconvenience. It’s a barrier to health equity.
Without cause-of-death data, countries can’t tell if maternal deaths are rising, if noncommunicable diseases are overtaking infectious ones, or if traffic injuries are becoming a national crisis.
In other words, what doesn’t get counted doesn’t get fixed.
The African CRVS Challenge
Across much of Africa, CRVS systems have long been plagued by underfunding, fragmentation, and limited digital infrastructure.
In many rural areas, births are still registered manually, if at all.
Families may lack access to registration offices or be unaware of the legal requirement to report vital events.
The consequences are far-reaching. Unregistered children may face barriers to schooling, vaccination, or even citizenship.
Unrecorded deaths mean that policymakers don’t know where to direct healthcare spending.
Public health data is patchy, delayed, or entirely missing.
In response, Bloomberg Philanthropies, in collaboration with Australian partners and other funders, launched the Data for Health initiative to help countries “digitize data systems, improve data quality, and increase the availability of real-time information for public health planning.”
Spotlight on Cameroon, Mozambique, and Nigeria
The 2024–2025 report highlights Cameroon as a leading example of recent progress. In 2023, the country passed new legislation aimed at reforming and expanding its civil registration system.
This policy breakthrough represents more than paperwork; it signals a national commitment to evidence-based planning.
Cameroon is not alone.
Other countries have also made strides in recording births and deaths, particularly in strengthening their ability to capture causes of death through verbal autopsy and hospital data systems.
“African countries such as Mozambique and Nigeria have also improved how they record causes of death,” the report states, noting that these improvements are “systemic” in nature.
These are not quick wins. Overhauling civil registration requires coordination between ministries of health, national statistics bureaus, and local governments.
It involves training thousands of health workers, upgrading software systems, and educating the public on the importance of documentation.
But the payoff is long-term and transformative.
Governments that know where people are being born, where they are dying, and from what causes, are in a vastly stronger position to build responsive health systems.
From Data to Action
Bloomberg’s role is catalytic.
Rather than setting up parallel data systems, the foundation supports countries in improving their own ensuring sustainability and national ownership.
Technical assistance is tailored to country needs, from automating cause-of-death reporting in hospitals to digitizing birth certificates in remote districts.
The initiative also promotes data use, not just collection.
This includes training health officials and policymakers to interpret health trends, run projections, and model the impact of interventions.
In essence, it’s not just about having data, it’s about knowing what to do with it.
“We support governments in using this information to guide health policies and programs,” the report notes, underlining the goal of transforming numbers into actionable strategies.
Bridging the Global Data Gap
The need for such interventions became even more urgent during the COVID-19 pandemic, which exposed vast disparities in countries’ ability to track disease and mortality.
Many African governments struggled to produce real-time data on infections and deaths, partly due to gaps in CRVS systems.
Bloomberg’s Data for Health initiative, working with national partners, helped fill some of those gaps, not just for COVID, but for tracking other causes of death like stroke, cancer, and injury.
The report highlights that, since its inception in 2015, the initiative has helped countries digitize over 37 million health records.
Many of those are from African countries that now use this data to guide national health strategies and monitor progress toward Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Empowering Communities, One Registration at a Time
At the community level, the reforms are having a tangible impact. In regions where births once went unrecorded for years, families now receive certificates within weeks.
In hospitals, digital tools are helping doctors log deaths more accurately.
In district offices, health planners can often see for the first time where maternal deaths or road traffic injuries are concentrated.
In Nigeria, where Bloomberg-supported programs have improved cause-of-death data collection, local health authorities can now respond more effectively to public health threats.
“Knowing what people are dying from – and where – allows for smarter health investments,” the report emphasizes.
This is especially important in countries facing resource constraints.
In Cameroon, where new laws have enabled a system-wide CRVS overhaul, the government can now better justify funding for maternal health, trauma care, or noncommunicable disease programs.
A Foundation for the Future
Civil registration may not sound glamorous.
It doesn’t make headlines or trigger emergency summits. But it is foundational for democracy, for health, and for dignity. A country that registers its people values their lives and plans for their future.
Bloomberg Philanthropies’ long-term investment in CRVS reform is a bet on systems over quick fixes, a strategy rooted in sustainability and national capacity.
It echoes the foundation’s broader approach: empower governments, strengthen data, and focus on the issues others overlook.
“When you know who is being left behind, you can do something about it,” the report states.
For Africa, where the need for reliable health data is urgent and the opportunity for progress is real, that insight could not be timelier.
Source:
All information and quotes are drawn from the Bloomberg Philanthropies Annual Report 2024–2025, pages 8, 9, and 43.
