Annual Session of the Executive Board of the UNDP and of the UNFPA
26 May - 5 June 2009, UN Headquarters, New York, USA

Statement by
Mr. Harry S. Jooseery
Executive Director, PPD

Mr. President,
Executive Director of UNFPA,
Distinguished Delegates,
Ladies and Gentlemen

Mr President, thank you so much for giving me this opportunity to comment briefly on the statement of the UNFPA Executive Director, on behalf of the Partners in Population and Development (PPD).

Mr President, as you are aware PPD is an intergovernmental organization of 24 developing countries dedicated to the promotion and strengthening of South-South cooperation on population and development.

PPD was founded at the 1994 International Conference on Population and Development. Its fifteenth anniversary therefore coincides with that of the Cairo Conference. The main theme of our International Forum and the Board meeting held in Kampala, Uganda in November 2008 was ICPD@15: Progress and Prospects. The Kampala Declaration which was discussed and adopted by all our Board members and participants constituting Ministers, and senior officials from the 24 developing countries in the PPD alliance bears testimony to the commitment and engagement that they pledged to move forward the global agenda for the advancement of reproductive health, population and development programme.

While noting significant progress in implementing many of the goals and objectives of the ICPD Programme of Action, the PPD forum noted that there was a long way to go towards ensuring universal reproductive health services by 2015.

We note with appreciation that support for HIV/AIDS prevention and care had grown manifold over the past years and this has indeed been instrumental in containing the disease in many developing countries in Asia and Africa. We deplore, however, that support for family planning has dwindled as a result of which many of our brothers and sisters in the developing world are out of reach of basic RH services, which aggravates their living conditions and reduces them very often to abject poverty.

As you would recall, the percentage of international assistance to FP has gone down from 55 per cent to less than 5 per cent now and over all international population assistance has not kept pace with increasing needs and demand in the field. It is unfortunate to note that despite impressive achievements in some parts of the world, maternal mortality still remains extremely high in developing countries; and efforts towards empowering women in education, health, employment and legal and social areas have yielded uneven, and in many respects, poor results. In all of these areas as well as in other areas of population and development, national governments and the international community have to commit themselves to energetic and sustained efforts to achieve the ICPD goals within the framework of MDGs by 2015. PPD is of course fully willing and committed to supporting these efforts, particularly through South-South Cooperation.

PPD’s main areas of activities have been advocacy, training, research, policy dialogues, and exchange of information and provision of technical assistance particularly in promoting reproductive health commodity security. PPD’s members have given increasing support to South-South Cooperation and many of them are also offering increasing financial and technical assistance to other PPD member countries and non-member countries. We are very hopeful that the range and volume of such assistance will grow rapidly in the years to come. PPD plans to reinforce its capacity building programme at systems, institutional and individual levels, refocus its initiatives to meet emerging needs and priorities; reinforce national structure to enable the repositioning of family planning in the development agenda of developing countries and create a more synergistic effort to achieve ICPD goals and the MDGs, through South-South Cooperation.

Mr President, the present financial downturn has caused serious setback to our programme. We urge that international and bilateral assistance to South-South cooperation grow, as it has proven quite efficient and cost effective. We urge the South to be more than ever united to support the South-South Initiative and demonstrate its ‘value added’ in this situation of urgency. We are thankful to UNFPA and its Executive Director, Dr. Obaid, for the support and cooperation that its headquarters and field offices have generously provided to PPD so far and we look to continuing close cooperation and relationship in the future. I congratulate Dr. Obaid and UNFPA staff for the impressive achievements in 2008.

Mr President, thank you.

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