Ghulam Nabi Azad to chair Partners in Population and Development meet in Beijing

New Delhi: Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad will chair the 18th annual board meeting of the Partners in Population and Development (PPD) at Beijing on October 23.

India is the chair of Partners in Population and Development and co-chair of the Partnership of Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH). PPD is an intergovernmental initiative created specifically for the purpose of expanding and improving South-to-South collaboration in the fields of reproductive health, population, and development. PPD was launched at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD), when ten developing countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America formed an intergovernmental alliance to help implement the Cairo Program of Action (POA). The POA, endorsed by 179 nations, stresses the need to establish mechanisms to promote development through the sharing of experiences in reproductive health (RH) and family planning (FP). India along with China and Bangladesh are founding members of PPD. PMNCH, on the other hand, is a multi-constituency partnership to promote the continuum of care - across life stages and levels of healthcare - for reproductive, maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health. PMNCH brings together governments, multilateral organizations, donors, NGOs, the private sector, health care professionals and academics. PPD`s Secretariat is located in Dhaka, Bangladesh with a Regional Office located in Kampala, Uganda, a UN Observer`s Office, located in New York and a Program Office located in Taicang, China. PPD country offices are located within the Health Ministry of the respective member country. PPD Members are developing countries committed to the implementation of the ICPD Programme of Action, willing to provide political, technical and financial support to South-South Cooperation. While there were only 10 developing countries at the time of formation of the Organization in 1994, PPD`s current membership stands at 25 developing countries across Asia, Middle East and North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America covering more than 57 percent of total world population. The PPD member countries are: Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Thailand, Viet Nam, Colombia, Mexico, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen, Jordan, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Uganda, Benin, Senegal, Zimbabwe, South Africa and Nigeria.