The registration of births and deaths is governed by the South African Birth and Deaths
Registration Act of 1992 (Act No. 51 of 1992) and is administered by the Department of Home
Affairs (DHA). Although the Act has been amended from time to time, probably the most
significant modification was the introduction of new birth and death notification forms in 1998.
The revision of the forms aimed to bring South African data on a par with international
standards, such as recording details of the death on the new death notification form proposed by
the International Classification of Diseases and Deaths (Bradshaw, Kielkowski and Sitas 1998).
An important initiative to improve the timely registration of births was the highlighting of the
registration process at antenatal care visits where mothers were encouraged to obtain
identification documents if they did not already have them and by providing the necessary birth
notification forms in state facilities at the time of delivery (Bradshaw, Kielkowski and Sitas
1998).
Evaluation of South Africa’s civil registration and vital statistics system has tended to focus on
the reporting of deaths (Botha and Bradshaw 1985; Darikwa and Dorrington 2011; Pillay-Van
Wyk, Laubscher, Msemburi et al. 2014). These investigations have found a marked
improvement in the timely registration of deaths at all ages particularly since 2000 (Dorrington
and Bradshaw 2011). By comparison, the efforts to measure completeness of the birth
registration locally and internationally have been minimal.