benefitted from a continuous supply of reliable data on vital events (including causes-of-death) to support informed policymaking and the implementation and monitoring of development plans. In its place, the need for vital statistics is met by conducting expensive periodic demographic and health surveys and decennial population censuses. In addition, in the absence of reliable information on causes of death, there is no solid basis to determine which diseases have a major impact on the population. This, in turn, has a negative impact on development and transformation efforts to improve the well-being of the people. The current state significantly jeopardizes many of the continent’s efforts to halt poverty and advance sustainable development. There is therefore an urgent need for a strategic shift to improve the state of affairs of registering key life events of African people for the betterment of their society. VI. Strategic analysis for the improvement in civil registration and vital statistics in Africa The strategic analysis tackles the question of where we want to be by the end of the African civil registration and vital statistics decade. In formulating the strategic plan, the two major issues considered are an improvement in registration processes in the countries on the identified high-priority vital events and the governance structure needed in the Africa Programme secretariat to ensure the success of the overall civil registration and vital statistics improvement goal at the continental level. This section sets out the strategic direction and overall goals of the African Programme initiative. It then lays out the strategic outcomes and objectives, including the major activities for each objective. It is followed by a strategy map, which provides a high-level summary of the strategic analysis. A. Strategic direction The strategic direction and the envisioning process, cast by stating a vision and mission for the desired civil registration and vital statistics system in all African countries, is an essential element of strategic planning because it establishes the direction of and the means for growth of the Africa Programme and the civil registration and vital statistics system of each country. Vision: The vision that will guide all actions and activities relating to civil registration functions in Africa is: The vision statement presents the main goal of the civil registration and vital statistics system by taking cognizance of the current state of the system and indicating the direction in which the system should head in the future. “Everyone visible in Africa” implies the recording of events identified in the scope of the registration activities as they occur in all countries, in line with the principle of leaving no one behind. It tackles the sad state of invisibility of millions of Africans to their own Governments, at the same time guaranteeing that citizens have their legal requirements met and quality vital statistics, including information on causes of death, produced regularly and on time. 13