National South-South Support Structure Workshop
09 June 2009, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

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

Dr. Kesetebreha Admassu Barhnne, Director General, Health Promotion and Disease Prevention General Directorate, Ministry of Health, Government of Ethiopia

Dr. Tizita Hailu, Director, Health Promotion and Disease Prevention General Directorate, Ministry of Health, Government of Ethiopia

Mr. Tedros Tolessa, PCC of PPD

Distinguished Guests – Ladies and Gentlemen

I am pleased to welcome you to this “National South-South Support Structure Workshop” jointly organized by the Ministry of Health, Government of Ethiopia and PPD. This is a first official event that PPD and Government of the Ethiopia are organizing here today.

I would like in the first instance to express my gratitude and thanks to the Government of the Ethiopia, especially, Director General, Health Promotion and Disease Prevention General Directorate, Dr. Kesetebreha Admassu Barhnne for hosting this event and inviting me to be part of it.

I would also like to thank Dr. Tizita Hailu, Director, Health Promotion and Disease Prevention General Directorate and Mr. Tedres Tolossa, PCC of PPD for the support provided to PPD for organizing this event.

Distinguished Guests – Ladies and Gentlemen - It is my pleasure welcoming Ethiopia on board PPD whose membership was ratified at the Thirteenth Annual Board Meeting of PPD held in Kampala, Uganda on 26 November 2008. However, Ethiopia was accepted as a Member of PPD long ago when the country official expressed its interest for the membership of PPD.

I bring with me the greetings of the Honorable Chair of PPD, H.E. Mr. Ghulam Nabi Azad, Minister of Health and Family Welfare of the Government of India and all the Board Members of PPD. Ethiopia’s partnership with PPD has added value to PPD and no doubt this partnership will help greatly to promote more engagement in promoting South-South cooperation. Honorable Minister, I am convinced that your vision and farsightedness will lead the change and that Ethiopia will grasp the outside world.

I wish to introduce to you our organization so that you could better understand how the South-South initiative could be a value added and effective strategy for change.

PPD is only an intergovernmental organization in the world that created during the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) held in Cairo in 1994 to promote and strengthen reproductive health, population, women empowerment and poverty alleviation through south-south cooperation. It enjoys a high level reputation and creditworthiness worldwide, alliances 24 developing countries and accounts 57% of the world population. The Secretariat of PPD is based in Bangladesh. We have a Regional Office for Africa in Kampala, Uganda, a Program Office in China and another office in New York, USA, where we are also a Permanent Observer to the United Nations.

The Governing Board of PPD that constitutes of Cabinet Ministers from members countries ensures the highest policy level commitments of the governments to the alliance. Its board meeting offers opportunity for negotiating bilateral or multilateral cooperation among member countries on different areas of common interests. PPD members can take united stand on issues of common interest for developing countries in the international forums. International forums and conferences of PPD provide member countries with exposure to the latest approaches and strategies for the development.

PPD enables its members and other developing countries to share their knowledge, experiences, expertise, best practices and technologies to ensure sustainable development and improve the quality of life through south-south cooperation. South-south cooperation is universally acknowledged as one of the most efficient, cost effective and result oriented modalities for attaining sustainable development of southern nations. It has unfettered access to the relevant information, knowledge, experiences, expertise, best practices and technical know-how available in different members countries to facilitate sharing, exchange and transfer among developing countries. PPD has also long term and effective collaborative partnerships with the world’s premiere training and research institutions which help capacity development at individual, institutional and systems level of the member countries.

Distinguished Guests – Ladies and gentlemen - Fifteen Years after ICPD, we cannot but rejoice at the tremendous achievement registered in the area of Reproductive Health, Population and Development. The quality of life in general has improved substantially in the world. We can proudly say that the Cairo Agenda has not remained a blueprint. It has ushered important changes in many parts of the world and ICPD must indeed be applauded for having been the turning point that has reshaped policies and program addressing Women’s Reproductive Health, Adolescent Sexual Health and many other culturally sensitive issues. We note with satisfaction that for the last 15 years the broad concept of reproductive health which was adopted at Cairo has been incorporated in increasing number of government policies. Though Reproductive Health was not included into MDGs in 2000, we are glad that it has been added as an additional target in the Millennium + 5 document adopted in 2005.

Distinguished Guests – Ladies and gentlemen - we are going through a very difficult period and the ICPD goals, just as the Millennium Development Goals, are far from being achieved. Donor countries have shied away from their commitment to Official Development Assistance (ODA). The funding for the RH programs has fallen by 60% during the last ten years. There are many challenges we need to face for our better living. The growing population of the world is emerging once again as a threat especially in the developing world. Current global economic and food crisis further jeopardize the world socio-economic progress. As the global economic crisis deepens, hunger and malnutrition are likely to increase. Reduced incomes and higher unemployment will greatly impact on the purchasing power of the poor. Population of the world has increased by 114% from 1960 to 2005 and is projected to increase over 9 billion in 2050. With the dramatic increase in world population is the rise in global warming and environmental degradation. It is projected that the average surface temperature will rise by 1.1 to 6.4 degree Celsius over the 21st century with serious implications not only on public health but the very survival of human species on earth. In 1990s approximately 600,000 deaths occurred worldwide as a result of weather-related natural disasters, 95% of which took place in developing countries. Poor people are becoming lesser fortunate and more destitute. The quality of life of many in the developing world has either remained stagnant or decreased. About half of the world’s population could face food shortages by the next century due to slash of crop yields from 20% to 40%.

It is unfortunate that many developing countries are still patriarchal with strong gender discrimination and other forms of social exclusion adversely effecting Reproductive Health. The rise of religious bias and fundamentalism retards progress and unfortunately contributes enormously in making girls and women easy prey to male dominance. The religious opposition to modern contraception, abortion and women empowerment in some parts of the world are very strong particularly in Africa. The "Mexico City" global gag rule policy further supported to these oppositions groups that greatly harmed the family planning worldwide. The ‘global gag rule’ which restricts funding for family planning is considered to be a major factor behind the limited access of women to contraceptives. Worldwide, unsafe, clandestine abortions are the cause of an estimated 78,000 maternal deaths each year and many thousands more maternal injuries.

In Africa, contraceptive use is lowest in the world, Total Fertility Rate is 5-6 births per women and ¾ of women in Sub-Saharan Africa need but do not have access to Family Planning. The use of contraceptives is 21% in Sub-Saharan Africa while the world average is 59%. In Africa alone, 100 million women and girls have had genital mutilation. Twenty seven out of the 46 states in Africa still practice Female Genital Cutting. An estimated 22 million people were living with HIV at the end of 2007 and approximately 1.9 million additional people were infected with HIV during that year. Two third of HIV infections among 15-20 years old occur in Africa.

We are glad to learn that Ethiopia has made encouraging progress in recent years to achieve ICPD goals and MDGs. It is appreciating that 60% of the women in the country are approving Family planning method. The government is addressing the problems of Reproductive Health, Malaria and HIV/AIDs. The Government of Ethiopia formulated a reproductive health task force composes of representatives from local NGOs, government ministries, international organizations and donors, including USAID to strengthen the Reproductive Health programs in the country.
There is a lot of experiences and knowledge that Ethiopia has achieved in the course of implementation of reproductive health programs which can be shared with PPD’s partners country, for example:

Distinguished Guests – Ladies and Gentlemen - we need to reposition Family Planning and HIV/AIDs program into the development agenda, integrate Family Planning for a more concerted effort and positive result. While we need to find new champions for Family Planning and promote greater resource mobilization for Reproductive Health programs, we need perhaps more importantly to reinforce political commitments and promote good governance.

The South-South cooperation entails that we have among us the skills, capabilities and expertise, and if we can galvanize our efforts together, we can improve the destiny of our children and particularly the improvement of the total population.

PPD will ensure that developing countries, despite their low resource base, are able to fully utilize their comparative advantage and become leaders in their respective fields. PPD will continue to develop and build institutional and individual capacities, continue advocacy for better access to Family Planning Services, and the integration of RH with HIV/AIDS for a balanced sharing of resources, and work for a secured supply of affordable and quality RH products and services in our member countries.

In the context of promoting South-South cooperation, RH and HIV/AIDS programs in Ethiopia, PPD commits to facilitate support and technical assistance. You will be happy to learn that a MoU has been signed between China and PPD to provide technical assistance to the PPD member countries. China and other member countries are willing to provide technical assistance to PPD’s partners countries. We are negotiating with these countries, and PPD will coordinate to strengthen relevant capabilities in Ethiopia. I am pleased to inform you that PPD will provide some fellowships to professionals and executives of Ethiopia in the fields of RH, and, Population and Demography during 2009-10 for a one year course in Demography at The Cairo Demographic Centre to the National Population Council.
Distinguished Guests – Ladies and gentlemen, PPD has developed a new Strategic Business Plan (2008-2011) that was approved by its Board at its last meeting in November 2008. As stated in the plan, in the next four years PPD will focus on:

1. Advocacy
2. Capacity Building
3. The exchange of experience and good practice
4. Training and Research

We wish Ethiopia to be involved in all these four areas of focus of PPD and play a more active role in South-South Cooperation. I have the firm conviction, that together we will build a better future for our children. We need to create a solid foundation of strong and coherent partnership. Besides cross-sectoral collaborations between and within governments, we need also a strong private and public sector partnership, participation of NGOs, academia, professional organizations, media agencies and all other branches of the civil-society in a spirit and movement that acknowledge and respect the roles and responsibilities of all and in addition provide necessary conditions for the growth of each and every one. This is a new culture that we wish to instill to enable government and stakeholders alleviate the sufferings of millions of people in the developing world, and especially in Africa.

PPD wishes to create an effective National Task Force in Ethiopia or can strengthen the existing Taskforce to galvanize efforts to promote South-South Cooperation, with the involvement of respective stakeholders. While the Ethiopia can share its experiences, it can also learn from the experiences of other countries. The PPD will provide technical and other forms of assistance to the national task force to enable it achieve its objectives. Let us we commit to three core actions for the coming years:

Let us join hand to continue promoting the partnership with Ethiopia and share to strive to improve our quality of life of our brothers and sisters in Ethiopia and in the developing world.

Distinguished Guests – Ladies and Gentlemen, I thank you for your attention.

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