India offers 10 health fellowships for developing countries

India has offered ten fellowships at the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare in New Delhi for member-countries of Partners in Population and Development (PPD) to help them build their capacity in the health sector.

Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad made the offer at a meeting of the executive committee of PPD held under his chairmanship in Dhaka, Bangladesh yesterday.

PPD is an inter-governmental alliance of 25 developing countries working to promote South-South cooperation in the field of reproductive health, family planning and population and development.

The headquarters of PPD is in Dhaka. India, China, Tunisia, Kenya and Bangladesh are the members of its executive committee. The Indian Health Minister is the current chair of the executive committee as well as the Board of the organisation.

According to an official press release, the issue of further strengthening the organisation and fostering better South-South cooperation in the area of health was discussed at length at the meeting.

Members stressed the need for raising more resources for undertaking more projects i the area of reproductive health, capacity-building and other population-related issues.

The meeting also discussed the question of constructing a building for the permanent secretariat of PPD in Dhaka and decided that the concept note and the requirement of funds would be presented at the next meeting of the committee.

The next meeting of the executive committee and the Board of PPD will take place in Indonesia from 20 October 25-28. It was also decided to organize a two-day international workshop on this occasion in Indonesia where the successful health-related programmes from various member-countries will be presented and discussed, in order to learn from the experiences of each other.

NNN