Romesh M Silva

Demographer/Statistician
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA)

rosilva@unfpa.org

Field of Study: Demographie, Population et développement, Santé publique / Epidemiologie, Statistique
 
Specialization: Structure par âge et par sexe, Démographie appliquée, Collecte et traitement des données, Estimations et projections, Differenties des rôles par genre, Migration Interne, Migration internationale, Mariage, Divorce et unions consensuelles, Mortalité, santé et longévité, Politiques et éthique, Population et développement, Vulnerability and Human Rights
 
Regional focus: Amérique latine et Caraïbes, Europe centrale et orientale, Afrique sub-saharienne, Moyen-Orient et Afrique du Nord (MENA), Asie centrale, Asie du Sud, Southeast Asia
 
Education: Doctorat (Ph.D, MD), University of California, Berkeley, Démographie, 2012
 
Working languages: Anglais
Français
 
Other association membership in population or related fields: Asian Population Association (APA), Population Association of America (PAA), Union for African Population Studies (UAPS)


Curriculum Vitae:
SILVA-CV-2025.pdf
Professional web page:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/romesh-silva-2262231a/  
 
Professional Summary:

Romesh Silva is a Senior Technical Specialist at the headquarters of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in New York. At UNFPA he serves as the global technical lead on civil registration and vital statistics, as well as UNFPA's work on population data and estimation in humanitarian settings. Prior to UNFPA, he was at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia and also on the faculty of the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. In the first half of his career, Romesh worked on the demographic analysis and estimation of conflict-related mortality and displacement with the Human Rights Data Analysis Group in Timor-Leste, Chad, Sri Lanka, India (Punjab), Guatemala, Colombia and Sierra Leone in support of international criminal prosecutions, official truth commissions and human rights investigations.

 

Romesh has chaired the IUSSP Scientific Panel on Population Registers, Ethics and Human Rights (2022-2026) and the IUSSP Scientific Panel on Population Perspectives (2019-2022). He also served on the IUSSP Scientific Panel on Innovations for Strengthening Civil Registration and Vital Statistical Systems (2015-2018),  U.S. National Academies Scientific Panel on Forced Migration Research (2019-2021) and U.S. NAS Expert Panel on Excess Mortality Estimates in Darfur (2006).  He also served on the Committee of Scientific Freedom and Human Rights of the American Statistical Association (2010-2016). 

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Publications:

1. Weny K, Silva R, Diop, N., Snow, R (2023) Spatial Clustering in Temporal Trends of Female Genital Mutilation Risk: Leveraging sparse data in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. Studies in Family Planning 54 (3), 487-501.

2. Silva, R. (2022) Population perspectives and demographic methods to strengthen CRVS systems: Introduction. Genus 78(1), 8.

3. Ellen Percy Kraly, Holly E Reed, Malay K Majmundar, Susan McGrath, Pia Orrenius, Romesh Silva, Sarah Staveteig Ford (2021) The role of migration research in promoting refugee well-being in a post-pandemic era. Journal on Migration and Human Security, 9(3):197-205.

4. Silva R., Mizoguchi N. (2019) Mortality Data in Service of Conflict-Affected Populations. In: Macfarlane S., AbouZahr C. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Global Health Data Methods for Policy and Practice. Palgrave Macmillan, London.

5. Silva, Romesh (2012) Child Mortality Estimation: Consistency of Under-Five Mortality Rate Estimates Using Full and Summary Birth Histories. PLoS Medicine, 9 (8): e1001296.

 
Honorary or professional positions and awards:
 
Chair, IUSSP Scientific Panel on Population Registers, Ethics and Human Rights (2022-2026)

Chair, IUSSP Scientific Panel on Population Perspectives (2019-2022).

Chair, UN Inter-agency Working Group on interoperability of baseline population, displacement and refugee data (IAWG-interop, 2022-present)

Member, IUSSP Scientific Panel on Innovations for Strengthening Civil Registration and Vital Statistical Systems (2015-2018).

Member, UN-DESA and WHO Technical Advisory Group on COVID-19 Mortality Assessment (2021-2024)

Member, U.S. National Academies Scientific Panel on Forced Migration Research (2019-2021)

Member, U.S. National Academies Expert Panel on Excess Mortality Estimates in Darfur (2006)

Member, Committee of Scientific Freedom and Human Rights, American Statistical Association (2010-2016).

Guest Editor, Genus (special journal issue) on Population perspectives and demographic methods to strengthen Civil Registration and Vital Statistics systems (2021-2022).
Research grants:
1. International Development Research Centre, Canada -- Inclusive population register systems for people-centered health and social policies and programs, IUSSP. https://idrc-crdi.ca/en/what-we-do/projects-we-support/project/inclusive-population-register-systems-people-centered-health



2. International Development Research Centre, Canada -- Expanding global capacity in civil registration and vital statistics (CRVS): hosting the Centre of Excellence in CRVS Systems at UNFPA. https://idrc-crdi.ca/en/what-we-do/projects-we-support/project/expanding-global-capacity-civil-registration-and-vital



3. International Development Research Centre, Canada -- IUSSP – Emerging ethics and human rights issues in the digitization of population register systems, 2022–2023. https://idrc-crdi.ca/en/what-we-do/projects-we-support/project/iussp-emerging-ethics-and-human-rights-issues-digitization



4. USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance -- Strengthening the Availability, Quality and Usability of Common Operational Datasets on Population Statistics (COD-PS), UNFPA.



5. International Development Research Centre, Canada -- Centre of Excellence for CRVS Systems: IUSSP scientific panel on population perspectives and demographic methods to strengthen CRVS systems