At the dawn of a new cycle of assistance (2004-2007), the Asian and the Pacific Division of UNFPA convened a meeting to consult with regional partners. The UNFPA Regional Programme for Asia and the Pacific Consultative Meeting was held from 29 to 31 July at Bangkok. Representatives from UNFPA Headquarters, UNFPA Country Offices and Country Technical Services Teams (CSTs) from Kathmandu, Suva and Bangkok attended the meeting, as well as UNFPA partner agencies in the region; UNESCAP, UNESCO Bangkok, the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development (AFPPD), the International Council on Management of Population Programmes (ICOMP) and the Japanese Organization for International Cooperation in Family Planning (JOICFP).

From left to right, Mr. G. Girindar, Director, UNFPA CST Bangkok; Mr. Subash K. Gupta, Director, Division for Management Services, UNFPA; and Mr. Satish Mehra, Programme Adviser, Asia- Pacific Division, UNFPA.

The three-day meeting was held in order to review experiences of the four regional projects for Asia and the Pacific supported by UNFPA from 2000 to 2003, discuss their impacts and lessons learned. The discussions, including on the topics of emerging issues and on strategies to strengthen linkages between regional projects, country programmes and CSTs, contributed to drawing lessons for the future.

On behalf of UNESCAP, Jerry Huguet, Chief, Population and Social Integration Section, Emerging Social Issues Division, made a presentation regarding the Commission’s regional population programme, particularly the population information component of the project and such other major activities as the Fifth Asian and Pacific Population Conference, technical assistance and partnerships.

Mr. Huguet gave a concise yet comprehensive overview of UNESCAP activities under the project titled “Compilation, packaging and regular dissemination of population information for advocacy purposes, 2000 - 2003”, carried out jointly with UNESCO. In his statement, he stressed that the “comparative advantage of the quarterly Asia-Pacific Population Journal was to provide access to information and data on smaller countries that would generally not be published by larger and more-academic journals”. He noted that signs of popularity of the Journal were the frequent citations of its articles in various publications throughout the world and the fact that the great majority of articles were submitted on a voluntary basis. The acceptance rate of papers for the first half of 2003 was about 40 per cent. The present bimonthly Population Headliners, published since 1975, was also profiled as an advocacy and resource mobilization tool, highlighting important aspects of national population programmes and notable population-related events and activities. The third pillar of the information module was also outlined; the Asia-Pacific Population Information Network (POPIN) including the electronic POPIN Bulletin and the population database (www.unescap.org/pop/database/index.htm), not to mention the package of web-based publications.

“This is an innovative meeting. We are pleased to be involved and to be able to meet with other partners”, Mr. Huguet said. He emphasized that UNESCAP worked closely with UNFPA CSTs and country offices on population issues but that cooperation with other regional partners could be enhanced.

The meeting was organized in the wake of a new dynamic initiated at UNFPA Headquarters, aimed at increasing effectiveness between the global, regional and country programme levels, and strengthening country programmes.