India, China to work together for improving health services

Health Ministers of the two nations, who met in Dalian in China on the sidelines of the 18th Executive Committee meeting of Partners in Population Development (PPD) on June 23 and 24, also decided to take forward the agenda of population development and boost south-south cooperation.

PPD, an inter-governmental initiative for expanding and improving South-to-South collaboration in reproductive health, population and development, also adopted its new governance Charter and drafted its strategic business plan for 2012-14.

India, represented by Health Minister Gulam Nabi Azad, has been in the PPD Chair for the last three years and China is its deputy.

The PPD Executive Committee also undertook the revision of its existing bye-laws to meet the changed requirements and reflect its growing role in population and development dynamics.

The Committee also gave shape to a new Governance Charter and Administrative and Financial Manuals for streamlining the functioning of the organisation.

It was felt that the new governance charter and manuals would guide the PPD to take forward its agenda and boost south-south cooperation.

The Executive Committee also finalised the modalities and schedule for construction of its Secretariat building at Dhaka, Bangladesh, for which land was offered by Bangladesh.The Executive Committee meeting was attended by China's Minister, National Population and Family Planning Commission Li Bin and Bangladesh Minister of Health and Family Welfare A F Ruhal Haque, among others.

During the meeting, India's role in expanding South-to-South cooperation was highlighted and the initiative of getting a management and financial audit to identify the gaps and challenges in the management, implementation and budgeting processes was also welcomed by the Board.

In addition to the joining of three new member countries, the activities of PPD have seen a substantial increase, whereby a large number of training programmes have been conducted in various countries to build up capacity of the professionals working in the fields of population and reproductive health.

The Executive Committee also discussed and adopted the agenda for the international conference being held at Pretoria, South Africa from October 31 to November 4, 2011 on the subject of "Population Dynamics, Climate Change and Sustainable Development".
PPD was launched in 1994 following the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).

Over the years, PPD's membership has increased from 10 to 25 developing countries covering more than 57 per cent of the total world population.

The PPD member countries now are: India, China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, Vietnam, Colombia, Mexico, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Uganda, Benin, Senegal, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Nigeria.