The universal registration of births and deaths and the production of vital statistics have been recommended by international organizations for many years, yet scant progress has been made. In 1953, the United Nations Statistics Division specified the principles for legal registration of vital events, although their interest was primarily for statistical rather than legal uses of the information.1 While this initial publication was followed by additional publications and workshops, and despite improvement projects funded by assistance organizations, little progress was made in improving civil registration for the duration of the twentieth century.2,3