An inter-government agency of developing countries - Partners in Population and Development (PPD) - has announced it would promote the UN Secretary-General’s special movement for women and children's health in the remaining days of MDGs.
Published : 07 Mar 2014, 06:34 PM
Ban Ki-moon launched the ‘Every Woman Every Child’ movement at the September 2010 UN summit on MDGs, mobilising and intensifying global action to improve the health of women and children across the world.
Headquartered in Dhaka, PPD, a collaboration of 26 south-south countries, would promote a movement among them to accelerate women and children health progress in the remaining 675 days of MDGs, it said in a media release.
Knowledge sharing, capacity building, commodity and technology transfers, advocacy and policy dialogues, partnership and resource mobilization, diplomacy and monitoring would be the ways of promoting the movement.
PPD said the commitment had been made at a high-level dinner at the UN headquarters in New York recently where Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and UN officials joined member states of PPD.
“South-South collaboration is more than just economic cooperation, it is about exchanging knowledge, experience and expertise," Ban Ki-moon was quoted as saying in a media release. “It is the foundation of a global and inclusive partnership for action."
PPD Executive Director Joe Thomas said its member countries cover more than 57 percent of the world population.
“Our commitment to the health and well-being of women and children, through South-South collaboration, will have unprecedented global impact,” he believed.
UNFPA Executive Director Babatunde Osotimehin said the UN Chief’s ‘Every Woman Every Child’ initiative had taught the world how “we can do things differently and get drastically improved results”.
“The UN system will continue to innovate and partner with organizations like PPD to maximize our collective impact,” he said.
WHO Director-General Margaret Chan, UN Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Financing the Health-Related MDGs and for Malaria Raymond Chambers, UN Office for South-South Cooperation Director Yiping Zhou, and ambassadors of all PPD member states attended the dinner.
Bangladesh, Benin, China, Colombia, Egypt, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Mali, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Uganda, Vietnam, Yemen and Zimbabwe are the members of PPD.
It holds the status of a permanent observer at the UN General Assembly.