Dhaka, June 9 (BDNEWS) – Dr Halida Hanum Akhter, Director General of Family Planning Association of Bangladesh (FPAB) and a renowned reproductive health researcher of the country, received the United Nation population award at the UN headquarters in New York Wednesday.
Judith Mbula Bahermuka, the chairperson of the committee for the UN population award, presided over the ceremony and Mark Malloch Brown, the deputy secretary general of the UN, handed over the award.
A medical graduate from Dhaka Medical College, Dr Halida received her MCPS in obstetrics and gynaecology from the college of physicians and surgeons in Dhaka. She earned her MPH and PhD in public health from the department of Population Dynamics of Johns Hopkins University in USA.
Halida was the founder and honorary managing director of Health Promotion Limited (HPL) and before that she was the founding director of Bangladesh Institute of Research for Promotion of Essential and Reproductive Health Technologies (BIRPERHT).
Her career included positions with the Ford Foundation, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Bank.
She received the "Developing Countries award 1995" of the Justus-Liebig University Giessen, Germany in recognition to her outstanding contribution to improve the health status of women and children and extensive consultancy agreement for both the government and the NGO sector in the family welfare programmes in Bangladesh.
In 1997 Halida received the "Outstanding International Alumnus Award for Science/ Research" of Johns Hopkins University, School of Public Health's Society of Alumni, Baltimore in USA.
She also received the "Host Country Award for Scientific Achievement" in the 10th Asian Conference on diarrhoeal disease and nutrition in 2003, said a press release.
BDNEWS/1333 hrs
