Now governments have committed to filling this gap by 2030.

At the end of Third ministerial conference on civil registration and vital statistics in Asia and the Pacific,, The leaders have adopted a renewed declaration to strengthen national civil registration systems – the fundamental mechanisms that record births, deaths and other vital events.

This decision extends the regional initiative of the “decade of the CRVS”, launched for the first time in 2014, in a new phase aligned with the Sustainable development objectives (ODD), in particular Target 16.9 by ensuring a legal identity for all.

“” These figures are more than statistics, they represent lives without legal recognition and families are left without support »» said Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Escape), who summoned the forum.

“This week was a powerful call for action. We have seen inspiring examples from countries reaching the most marginalized, adopting digital innovation and strengthening legal and institutional frameworks. ”

More than statistics

Civil registration systems and civil statistics (CRVS) are essential to establish legal identity, access services and ensure inclusion in public policy.

A birth certificate can mean access to health care, education and social protection.

A death certificate allows families to claim inheritance, pensions and other rights.

Without these critical documents, individuals – in particular women, children and rural populations – exclusion of risks, vulnerability and injustice.

Unequal progress

According to a recent escape report,, The region has produced remarkable gains since 2012 – The number of children not recorded under the age of five has dropped by more than 60%, from 135 million to 51 million.

In 2024, 29 countries now recorded more than 90% of births in one year, and 30 do the same for deaths. The number of countries publishing civil statistics based on civil registration has almost doubled during this period.

However, progress remains uneven – around 14 million children in the region reaching their first birthday without their birth being recorded. And 6.9 million deaths are not recorded each year, in particular those that occur outside health establishments or in remote areas.

Many countries are always faced with gaps in the certification and coding of death causes, hampering the surveillance of diseases and public health responses, as shown in the COVID 19 pandemic.

Put everyone in the photo

The new ministerial declaration calls for universal and reactive CRVS systems which are inclusive, digitally compatible and resilient.

It emphasizes gender equity in registration, legal protections for personal data and continuity of services during emergencies.

Governments have also been committed to increasing training, extending community awareness and improving relationship relationships – including through verbal autopsies and improving certification systems.

“” Everyone counts. Data save livesMs. Alisjahbana said“Legal identity is a right, not a privilege. No one should be left behind – simply because they have never been counted in the first place. ”

“” Let’s finish what we started. Let’s give everyone in the photo and make sure that each life really matters.“”

The regions of Donetsk, Kherson and Sumy have suffered the most damage, several civilians were said to have been killed, and many displaced spokespersons from the UN, Stéphane Dujarric, told journalists on Thursday during a regular press bass.

“Our humanitarian colleagues tell us that food insecurity remains a first line concern and in border regions,” he added.

According to a recent assessment of the United Nations World Food Program (Wfp) and the organization of food and agriculture (Fao), the conflict has devastated livelihoods and quadrupled poverty levels, leaving the most vulnerable people – especially inappropriate people – more at risk.

Food insecurity on the front line

The executive director of PAM, Cindy McCain, described the challenges.

“This front line extends over 700 miles and countless towns and villages are still without survival bases,” she said.

This made the work of humanitarian workers even more vital, with more than 400,000 people in Donetsk and Kherson receiving food and agricultural support in addition to cash assistance.

In total, more than 130 humanitarian organizations have distributed food aid and livelihoods to more than 1.8 million people across the country.

Help challenges

But hostilities becoming more and more deadly, humanitarian access remains limited. Since the start of the year, there has been a 50% increase in civil deaths compared to the same period last year.

The authorities continue to urge the 10,000 people who remain in the first line region to be evacuated for their own security.

“For those who stayed or those who returned, there is no job, no income and no opportunity,” said McCain.

Speaking from the Goma region, the main city of which was invaded by the M23 rebels supported by Rwanda in January, the United Nations Emergency Rescue Coordator Tom Fletcher had suffered “decades of trauma”.

The last months have been “particularly horrible for many,” he added, referring to the fallout without law of heavy fights this year between rebel fighters and the army of regular DRC which has been linked to serious human rights violations, including potential war crimes.

“The most striking today and yesterday was the stories of sexual violence, and sit with women who tell horrible stories that are too horrible for me to tell here and who are trying to find the courage to rebuild their lives,” said the United Nations Chief of Rescue.

“” We are there to provide them with this support, trying to help them rebuild, but they have gone through hell. “”

Call of peace

All these new displaced by the M23 Rebel Advance are added to the five million people who are already living in travel camps in the east of the DRC. Today, more than 20 million people need to help relief. “” They are desperate that this conflict ends,»M. Fletcher continued.

One day after NATO member states agreed with a 5% increase in funding for their collective defense, UN humanitarian work and its partners is basically rocks.

In the DRC, 70% of UN aid programs were historically funded by the United States-“incredible generosity over the decades”-noted Mr. Fletcher. But today, “we see most of this disappearance,” he insisted, forcing the humanitarian community to make “brutal choice, life and death choices” on which receives help.

“For these women – the survivors of sexual violence, for the children who told me that they needed water, for the communities who told me that they needed shelter, medicine, these cuts are real at the moment and people are dying because of the cuts,” said the senior UN.

Help teams did not stop

Despite the difficulties linked to the prolonged nature of the conflict in the DRC and the massive needs, the United Nations aid teams and their partners “work hard to access these communities,” insisted Mr. Fletcher – “trying to open the airport, trying to open the roads, trying to unlock control points that prevent our aid through”.

In an attempt to squarely the circle of the quantity of aid financing regularly reducing supplied worldwide, Mr. Fletcher recently announced A “hyper priorititized” plan to save 114 million lives this year. But it depends on receiving the necessary financing. “” All we ask to do is one percent of what the world has spent for defense last year“, He continued.

After visiting and connected the communities had an impact repeatedly by fighting, the senior United Nations insisted so that they should not be forgotten. “These are the fronts of humanitarian effort,” he said.

Communities on the front line

“I suppose that the gleam of hope in all of this is, yes, we can work in this more effective and priority way and will do it; But also, the communities here which are – basically – they have passed so much and they are determined to support each other. ”

And despite the increase in antipathy in certain countries towards international cooperation, including work efforts and promotion of the United Nations, Mr. Fletcher insisted that reasons of optimism remain.

“I really believe that there is a movement that will support this work, which will support this work,” he told the UN News. “We have to find them. We have to enlist them, and we must show them that we can deliver them.

“And, you know, I have not abandoned human kindness and human solidarity. I have not abandoned The Charter of the United Nations for a second. And this work is at the heart.

Israeli authorities have intensified measures to transfer a large number of people from Palestinian cities and communities for a long time, according to OhchrBureau of the occupied Palestinian territory.

On June 18, the High Planning Council of the Israeli civil administration published a directive to reject all the building permits and planning submitted by the Palestinians to Masafer Yatta, in the south of the hills of Hebron, in the region designated by the Israeli authorities under the name of the 918 shooting area.

The decision was based on the reason that the Israeli army needs the “military training” region, the Office of Rights said.

Demolitions

In recent months, Israel has considerably accelerated home demolitions, as well as arbitrary arrest and the ill -treatment of Palestinians and human rights defenders. This occurs alongside intensification of movement restrictions in and around Masafer Yatta, to force the Palestinians, noted the office.

At the same time, the Israeli settlers of neighboring outposts led daily attacks and the harassment of the Palestinians, including the elderly, women and children, to force them to leave.

“The recent directive of the Israeli civil administration actually opens the way to the Israeli army to demolish the existing structures in the region and expel about the approximately 1,200 Palestinians, who have lived there for decades,” said the OHCHR.

“This would be equivalent to a forced transfer, which is a war crime. This could also constitute a crime against humanity if it was committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack. »»

Some 6,463 Palestinians were forcibly moved following the demolition of their houses by Israel between October 7, 2023 and May 31, 2025, according to the United Nations Humanitarian Affairs Office, Ochha,,

This figure does not include around 40,000 Palestinians displaced by three refugee camps in Jenin and Tulkarem due to intensive Israeli operations in the north of the West Bank since January.

During the same period, more than 2,200 Palestinians were forcibly moved by settlers and access restrictions.

More risky communities

Ohchr added that countless other Palestinian communities are faced with the same forced trip. He said that on June 10, the municipality of Jerusalem would have issued demolition notices for the whole village of a Nu’man, which houses 150 people.

The village, which is located near Bethlehem, was cut off from the rest of the West Bank by building the separation wall and incorporated within the unilaterally declared limits of Israel of the municipality of Jerusalem unilaterally. Most Palestinians have not received Jerusalem identification cards, which actually makes them incapable of accessing services in East Jerusalem or the rest of the West Bank.

“These demolition opinions seem to be another stage of Israel to worsen the coercive environment and forcibly transfer the Palestinians in the village and consolidate the annexation of this land,” said the office.

EXPOLS in East Jerusalem

Meanwhile, the Palestinians in East Jerusalem also occupied the continuous threat of forced expulsion of their homes and their land.

The OHCHR said on June 16 and 22, the Israeli Supreme Court approved the expulsion of five Palestinian families, 37 people, their homes in the Batn El Hawa district of Silwan on the basis of discriminatory laws which allow Jewish people to recover lost goods in the 1948 war, while refusing the same rights.

In addition, the Israel Land land authority published expulsion notices on June 11 for residences at Umm Tuba. The 150 Palestinians affected were informed that the land was registered with the Jewish National Fund under the “Title on the Land”.

“These expulsions are part of a concerted campaign of Israeli state organizations and settlers, which target the Palestinian districts to grasp the Palestinian houses and extend the Jewish colonies,” said the Ohchr.

The office stressed that these acts violated international law, which prohibits the confiscation of private property in occupied territory, as the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice (Icj) Last July.