Asia-Pacific Population Journal going from strength to strength

During the fourth meeting of the Editorial Advisory Board...

After an eventful year 2006, punctuated with events marking the 20th anniversary of its launch, the Asia-Pacific Population Journal held its fourth annual Editorial Advisory Board meeting in Bangkok on 9 July, reflecting on its past success and outlining possible strategies for its sustenance.

Published by ESCAP with financial support from the UNFPA, the Asia-Pacific Population Journal, in print since 1986, has grown into a well respected and widely-read publication, attracting up to 170,000 hits a month on its website <www.unescap.org/appj.asp>.

Bringing together a group of population experts from the Asian region, the annual meeting of the Board of APPJ aims to provide policy guidance and oversight to the Journal in order to continuously enhance its academic and professional quality and make further use of its potential for better policy formulation and advocacy in the field of population and development.

The fourth meeting of the Board indeed sought ways to capitalize on the Journal’s strength and uniqueness, such as the highly-relevant evidence-based policy recommendations it brings forward and its undisputed demographic niche. Despite the publication’s commendable track record, the Board was of the view that the Journal could reach out to an even broader audience such as the business community and graduate students in the field of population.

Regarding membership to the Board, it was agreed that it should be rotating to some extent, so as to allow fresh ideas and views to be brought along with new members.
A pilot version of the complete collection of the Asia-Pacific Population Journal on CD-ROM was introduced during the meeting, for initial comments and feed-back by Board members (see below).

“The APPJ has gone from strength to strength”, said Ms. Thelma Kay, referring among others to the Journal’s web traffic statistics and its record of articles contributed by well-known population specialists.

“The APPJ is one of its kind in Asia and the Pacific, having no direct competitor as it is published and disseminated free of charge and emphasizes on policy implications of research findings”, she said.