PNG gets help to improve births and deaths registrations

3:35 pm on 7 February 2018

A new health initiative is aiming to improving the civil registration system in Papua New Guinea.

The philanthropic agency, the Bloomberg Data For Health Initiative, is working closely with the PNG government to make registering details of births, deaths and marriages accessible for the vast majority of the population which lives in rural areas.

The newly established Pacific Civil Registrars Network is also involved and its chair, New Zealand's Registrar-General Jeff Montgomery, said they were working with Pacific countries to improve laws around registrations.

"And also how birth and death registrations link into the wider public service, so how the health system can assist in registering babies who are born in health facilities, how things like the village books in Papua New Guinea can be part of the process and how to join up all the parts of government around the births and deaths registration process."