New Delhi: “More South-South cooperation and mutual understanding would help to redefine strategies in terms of introduction of newer contraceptives, technical protocols and also replicate the successful schemes in the area of population stabilisation”. The Union Health and Family Welfare Minister and Chairman, Partners in Population Development (PPD), Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad was today addressing a gathering at Nairobi, Kenya on the occasion of Re-Launch of Family Planning Campaign of Government of Kenya during the ongoing three day meeting of the Executive Committee of PPD. Minister of State for Planning, National Development and Vision 2030, Government of Kenya, Mr Wycliffe Ambetsa Oparanya; Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh, Prof. Dr. A F M Ruhal Haque; Vice Minister, National Population and Family Planning Commission, Government of the People’s Republic of China, Ms. Cui Li; Secretary, Health & Family Welfare, Government of India and senior officials of Government of Kenya and the twenty four other partner countries of PPD were present on the occasion.

Shri Azad said “Kenya and India can engage with each other and work together - We will be glad to share our policy initiatives, schemes, products and expertise”. In efforts toward population stabilization, it is clear that each country can learn from experiences of other countries as to how best to address the complicated issues which involve health, education, socio-economic development and individual choices. Sharing of views on common platforms like these help us to learn and gain from each other’s experience, Shri Azad noted.

The Minister said growing population is a matter of great concern and poses several challenges on the economic, environmental and development fronts. He noted that the world population stands today at 7 billion plus. Africa and India together constitute more than 2.3 billion, which is roughly one third of the entire world population. Kenya alone has approximately 41 million people and like India, its population is very young and growing rapidly.

Shri Azad informed that India has been consistently making efforts towards improving health and reducing fertility for sustainable development ever since the launch of the world’s first national program emphasizing family planning for reducing birth rates in 1952. Since then the Indian family planning program has evolved and has recently been repositioned to not only achieve population stabilization but also to promote reproductive health and reduce maternal mortality, infant & child mortality and morbidity. The National Population Policy, since 2000, places emphasis on reducing the unmet needs for family planning, improvement of health care infrastructure and attain Population Stabilization by the year 2045.

According to the recently conducted Census of India, the population now stands at 1.21 billion. A positive sign emerging from the Census shows that the decadal growth rate has come down sharply to 17.64 in the years’ 2001 to 2011 as against 21.54 between 1991 to 2001. There has been a steady decline in Total Fertility Rate. 14 States and Union Territories out of 35 have already achieved the replacement fertility level of 2.1.

The focus in India has been to make special efforts to generate awareness and persuade people to have small family sizes for the betterment of the health of the mother, child and the whole family. For this, focus is on providing fixed day family planning services at health facilities and easier access to contraceptives. “We have now launched a new initiative under which, contraceptives, both male and female, shall be delivered free of cost and door to door by the community health workers in high focus areas’ Shri Azad said.

To reduce the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) and Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), the Government of India has taken a number of initiatives in the last 5 years to facilitate institutional deliveries and new born care, which have seen institutional deliveries increase from 47% to 72%. The national programme contributed to the further decline of the MMR from 254 in 2004-06 to 212 in 2007-09 and IMR from 58 in 2005 to 47 in 2010.

India was re-elected as the Chairperson of Partners in Population Development (PPD) in November 2011 for a further three year term. The other members of the newly constituted Executive Committee include China as Vice-Chair, Kenya as Secretary, Tunisia as Treasurer and Mexico and South Africa as members. The PPD partner countries are from Asia, North Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. India has chaired the PPD since 2009.The Executive committee consists of four elected Board Members (Chairman, Vice-Chairman, Secretary and Treasurer), one from each of the four main regions (Sub- Saharan Africa, Asia; North Africa and the Middle East; and Latin America and Caribbean).

The idea of forming the Alliance for South-South collaboration owes its origin in the deliberations held in Bellagio, Italy in October 1993, followed by another meeting in the same venue in April 1994, which concluded that "a number of developing countries have been remarkably successful in the design and implementation of national population policies and programmes. This represents a unique pool of practical experiences which can greatly assist other developing countries in their efforts to implement national strategies." It was realized in the meeting that sharing of these experiences through South-South Cooperation under an intergovernmental framework would immensely benefit the developing countries, which led to further consultations and launching of the Alliance in 1994 in Cairo.