Table 1.

Description of country governance for VA implementation

Country	Aim of the VA intervention	Governance of VA implementation
		National CRVS policy and coordinating committee	National subcommittee/technical working group on mortality and cause of death	Business case/rationale for VA implementation
China	To explore the feasibility of using VA to improve the quality of community cause of death data	No CRVS committee Chinese CDC responsible for VA pilot studies	Chinese Centre for Chronic and Noncommunicable Disease Control and Prevention, of Chinese CDC	The current procedure for capturing community cause of death was not standard and needed improvement.
Myanmar	To produce nationally representative data on community cause of death in the country.	Coordinating committee for birth and death registration was in existence.  Members include  Ministry of Health and Sport.  Ministry of Education.  Ministry of Home Affairs.  Ministry of Labour, Immigration and Population.  Office of the Attorney General.  Ministry of Planning and Finance.  Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement.  Ministry of Communication and Information Technology.  Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Rural Development.	Mortality technical working group was created to oversee the VA implementation as well as other CRVS strengthening activities. Members include Central Statistical Organisation. Ministry of Health and Sports. General Administration Department.	Critical information on majority (~84%) of deaths occurring outside a facility is missing (either through low registration or very poor-quality cause of death). Hospital cause of death is biased and does not provide good information on population cause of death patterns in the country.
PNG	To improve the quality of cause of death data in defined mortality surveillance sites	Dormant CRVS committee was re-established, cochaired by the registrar-general and the manager of the Performance Monitoring and Research Branch at the National Department of Health.  Members include  Development partners  DFAT.  WHO.  World Bank.  UNFPA.  UNICEF.  Government stakeholders  National Department of Health.  Department for National Planning and Monitoring.  Department of Provincial and Local Government Affairs.  National Statistics Office.  Department of Justice and Attorney General.  National Department of Community Management.	National Burden of Disease Technical Committee, reports to the secretary for health and the Medical Society of PNG. Members include National Department of Health. School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of PNG. Institute of Medical Research staff. Senior physicians and hospital directors.	Critical information, including fact of death as well as cause of death, was missing for most deaths occurring outside of health facilities.
Philippines	To improve the quality of the cause of community deaths nationally using SmartVA for Physicians (using SmartVA as a decision support tool to certify deaths by physicians)	Interagency committee on civil registration and vital statistics existed.  Chair: Philippine Statistics Authority  Vice chair: Department of Health  Members include  Department of Foreign Affairs.  Department of Justice.  Department of Education.  Department of Social Welfare and Development.  Department of Interior and Local Government.  Office of the Cabinet Secretary.  Population Commission.	At first a technical advisory group for VA was established to provide guidance. Later, the epidemiology bureau at the Department of Health took over the training and implementation of SmartVA.	The quality of cause of death data for the deaths occurring outside of health facilities needed improvement.
Solomon Islands	To achieve national coverage of community deaths and deaths-on-arrival at health facilities	A national CRVS committee was established, comprising representatives from the Ministry of Health and Medical Services, and Ministry of Home Affairs	A national mortality technical working group was established, primarily comprising senior clinicians, health information management staff and health policy makers.	Critical information, including fact of death as well as cause of death, was missing for the majority of deaths occurring outside of health facilities.

Chinese CDC, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention; CRVS, civil registration and vital statistics strengthening; DFAT, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade; PNG, Papua New Guinea; UNFPA, United Nations Population Fund; VA, verbal autopsy.