PPD Watch :: January 2007

Executive Director’s Message

Welcome to the first edition of PPD WATCH! This publication aims at continually updating readers on emerging and new developments in the field of Reproductive Health, Population and Development through South-South Cooperation. We intend to share with you the South-South initiatives and interventions that are steadily contributing to sustainable development and thus bringing positive changes in the millions of lives in the Southern hemisphere.

Three decades of large scale international development cooperation in population and development coupled with extensive transfer of technologies and resources from the industrialized North to the developing South have produced a wide array of knowledge, experience and expertise in the Southern countries. The world witnessed a great paradigm shift in the international development cooperation, i.e. the preponderant capability of technical cooperation in population and development increasingly shifted to the South. South-South cooperation emerged as a complementary force to the North-South Cooperation, and received befitting recognition from the international community at the UN General Assembly and in other international fora.

Mr. Harry Sangeet Jooseery
Executive Director
Partners in Population and
Development (PPD)

This new modality of cooperation was initially tried mainly on an ad hoc basis and it produced encouraging results indicating an overarching need for its institutionalization. The Partners in Population and Development (PPD), which was launched at the ICPD 1994 in Cairo, institutionalized the South-South Cooperation for the first time in history. ICPD Programme of Action endorsed by 179 participating countries, constitute the strategic framework for South-South collaboration. Governments of 10 developing countries, with huge state-of-the-art institutional infrastructure and a critical mass of experts and professionals in population and development at their disposal, formed the Intergovernmental Alliance with the commitment to collaborate among themselves and other developing countries. Pioneers of the movement like Steve Sinding, Sara Seims, Jyoti Singh, Haryono Suyono, Timothy Stamps and others must be applauded for initiating the South-South Cooperation initiative.

By 2004, the Alliance had doubled its membership from 10 to 21 bringing 54% world population under its programmatic coverage. It was conferred with Permanent Observer Status at the United Nations in 2002, opened regional and liaison offices in New York, Cairo, China and Uganda, established 7 regional networks across the world, entered into strategic alliances with a number of international research institutes, developed programmatic relationship with and helped strengthening the capacity of 40 institutions and centres of excellence, created over 1000 leaders of programme implementation and management, 187 visionary leaders in policy formulation and programme design, built capacity of 116 Southern experts in RH, Population and Development for marketing in the developing and developed countries.

Many exciting developments are constantly taking place on all fronts of the South-South cooperation in the developing world and we intend to keep the international community abreast of these developments through this monthly bulletin. We would appreciate receiving your contributions for publication in the PPD Watch.

My best wishes to PPD Watch, its editor, contributors and readers.

Annual Work Planning Retreat of Partners in Population and Development

PPD Secretariat had an Annual Work Planning Retreat during 28-29 January in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh. The workshop was attended by all the staff members of the PPD Secretariat in Dhaka including support staff. The objectives set for the two days intensive exercise workshop were:

PPD Staff at the Annual Work Plannig Retreat 2007

End of the retreat staff came out with a work plan for 2007. In the process past activities were reviewed and prioritize the work for future based on PPD mandate. A draft report of the retreat is being prepared. Final version will be available to the PPD web very soon.

Workshop on South-South Cooperation on Population and Sustainable Development, Sana'a, Yemen.

An one day workshop was organized by the National Population Council /Technical Secretariat of Yemen in cooperation and coordination with PPD on 25th of December 2006 in Sana’a, Yemen titled “South-South Cooperation on Population and Sustainable Development”. About 100 participants attended the workshop from the Government, NGOs, International Organizations, Donor communities and Local and International Mass Media and press. The purpose of the workshop was:

H.E. Mr. Amin Maaroof Al-Janadthe, Board Member of PPD and Secretary General of NPC, Yemen delivering an inaugural speech in the workshop. In his left, Mr. Mutaher Zabara, the Secretary assistant of NPC and in the right, Mr. Abdul-Malik Sharafuddin, PCC of Yemen.
The workshop was inaugurated and chaired by H.E. Mr. Amin Maaroof Al-Janadthe, Board Member of PPD and Secretary General of National Population Council (NPC), Yemen. Honorable Minister in his speech stressed on the importance of conducting the workshop in Yemen to introduce the PDD and its activities. He also mentioned the importance of enhancing the cooperation between member countries of the alliance, institutions and individuals in areas of mutual interests within the south- south collaboration.

A welcome speech was delivered by Mr. Abdul-Malik Sharafuddin, PCC of Yemen. In his speech he said member countries of the alliance is rich with experts , knowledge and experiences and these knowledge can be shared among member states and consultants can be used in the areas of population and development. The participants were very interested to know more about PPD. They said that the knowledge and expertise of PPD need to be more exposed and exchanged among the member countries.

International Workshop on "Consulting for Results" for the PPD Consultants from the Francophone countries, Rabat, Morocco.

PPD and Ministry of Health, Morocco jointly organized an International Workshop on "Consulting for Results" for the PPD Consultants from the Francophone countries in Rabat, Morocco from 5 -7 December 2006. The workshop was attended by sixteen mid to senior level professionals in reproductive health, population and development from four selected francophone member countries of PPD namely Mali, Morocco, Senegal and Tunisia. The workshop was officially opened by Dr. Fouad Hamadi, Gerneral Secretary of Ministry of Health, Morocco and was attended by representatives from the international development agencies, UN agencies, ambassadors of the diplomatic missions of the participating countries, senior officials from the Ministry of Health, Morocco and the local media including press and electronic. Mr. Harry Sangeet Jooseery, Executive Director of PPD made a Statement in the Ceremony where he thanked the Government of Morocco and welcomed the participants wishing them successful deliberations in the workshop.

The training was conducted in French and the key Facilitator was Mr. Amegan Ayaménou Koami Eloi from the Center for African Studies (CAFS) in Lomé, Togo. The three day training workshop was carried out with active participation, enthusiasm and interest from the candidates. The objective of the workshop was to strengthen the consulting capability of reproductive health, population and development professionals. The course focused on reflection on past consulting experiences, the concept of consultant roles, specific skill building exercises were also introduced to emphasize the interpersonal aspects of the consultant-client relationship.

Mr. Jooseery met H.E. Dr. Mohamed Cheikh Biadillah, Secretary, PPD Board and Honourable Minister, Ministry of Health, Morocco in his office

During his stay in Morocco, Mr. Jooseery met with H.E. Dr. Mohamed Cheikh Biadillah, Secretary, PPD Board and Honorable Minister, Ministry of Health, Morocco to discuss future areas of South-South Cooperation and express his gratitude to the Minister for accepting to host the workshop. As Mr. Jooseery met the Honorable Minister for the first time, he briefed about PPD’s activities since he joined.

PPD Secretariat appointed 4 new staff to join the team in Dhaka. They are as follows-