Asia-Pacific POPIN Bulletin (Updated 17 Apr. 2000)

A new face to POPIN members, Dr Yu Xuejun, the newly-appointed Executive Director of CPIRC, takes charge of overall management of the Centre, including East and South-East Asia POPIN networks

The China Population Information and Research Centre (CPIRC)has a new person in charge, Dr Yu Xuejun, the youngest director CPIRC has ever had.

Dr Yu was appointed on 10 September 1998 by the State Family Planning Commission as the Executive Director responsible for overall management of the Centre, including China POPIN. He took the helm of the Centre following the retirement of its former Director, Mr Xiao Zili.

Dr Yu comes to this post directly from his previous position as Assistant to the CPIRC Director and Chief of the General Office.

He is well qualified for the top post. He obtained his master's degree and doctorate in Population Economics in 1989 and 1994, respectively, from the School of Economics, Peking University. During the period August 1996 to June 1998, he undertook post-doctoral studies at the Economic Growth Center, Yale University, in the United States.

Strongly recommending Dr Yu for the position was his former supervisor, Mr Xiao. "Because of his eight years of research and administrative experience, Yu will be fully competent in this post", said Mr Xiao. "I am confident that he will elevate CPIRC, China POPIN and the East and South-East Asia POPIN secretariat to a new level of excellence in the development of network infrastructure and application of telecommunication technologies".

During his own period in office, Mr Xiao did much to develop CPIRC. As a seasoned and senior research fellow in information and library science, he confidently led CPIRC through its maturation stage, expanding the scope of the Centre's work and modernizing the China POPIN in-country network.

CPIRC's priorities have been to conduct population research and provide advice and consultancy in the formulation of government plans and policies and for improving the effectiveness of China's population programmes.

Population issues will continue to be extremely important not only to China, but also to Asia, Dr Yu commented." Asian people-- representing about 60 per cent of the world's total--are confronted by a series of demographic problems. Accompanying the decline in the fertility rate is population ageing, rapid urbanization, rising sex ratio at birth and a number of reproductive health issues", he explained

In view of all these serious issues, he said, "it has become increasingly important to provide governments at various levels with timely and accurate population data and information for their decision-making and for implementing the ICPD Programme Action".

In China's case, because population information is needed not only at the national level, CPIRC also disseminates appropriate data and information to units at the grassroots level to provide guidance in implementing the family planning programme.

"While I am Executive Director of CPIRC, these aspects will certainly continue to get our attention" ,stated Dr Yu. With regard to China POPIN in particular, he said that CPIRC will continue to maintain its main functions which are to collect and process population information and update several Web-based databases with a larger range of research topics

He added that CPIRC will also cooperate with ESCAP and the other members of Asia-Pacific POPIN in carrying out the recommendations of the most recent Consultative Meeting of the subregional network, which was held at Beijing in November.

"At that meeting ESCAP proposed the development of a reproductive health indicators database and a population and family planning policies and regulations database. CPIRC shall strive to expand the resources devoted to the management information system for family planning services, the reproductive health indicators database, and the population and family planning policies and regulations database so as provide users with broader access to more and richer information", he added.

An important milestone in the development of CPIRC took place on 1 July 1997, when the Centre began to function as the secretariat of the East and South-East Asia POPIN subregional network.

In that regard Dr Yu said that, thanks to the guidance and assistance given by the ESCAP secretariat and enlightenment gained from other countries, China has been able to make a contribution to POPIN work. "The Chinese Government attaches great importance to the Centre's function as the East and South-East Asia POPIN secretariat", he said.

CPIRC first became actively involved in Asia-Pacific POPIN regional and subregional activities and programmes long before 1997, he observed.

For example, starting from 1989, CPIRC co-organized with the ESCAP secretariat five POPIN Consultative Meetings and co-conducted with ESCAP six Training Workshops on Selected Population Topics and Information Technologies for Professionals.

"In total, more than 150 trainees from 17 countries in the Asian and Pacific region have been trained by CPIRC in cooperation with ESCAP", he said.

"Under the ESCAP TCDC programme, we have received several study groups from six countries; in turn, we have sent 10 groups to Indonesia, India, Malaysia, the Philippines, Republic of Korea, Thailand and Viet Nam for technical cooperation and other purposes", he said.

With regard to China POPIN, Dr Yu thinks that its membership should be increased to include not only family planning units but also research institutes, and other related agencies and departments engaging in statistics, civil affairs and public health.

"Up-to-date, accurate, spatially referenced and easily accessible information on population and the social, economic and environmental characteristics of communities is essential to effective policy planning and decision-making at the local and national levels", he said.

"China POPIN will promote coordination and the exchange of information among the different public and private agencies concerned, and provide more useful and higher quality information to those users who need it most

China POPIN was established in 1986; three years later a Working Committee was set up to guide its further development. Currently, China POPIN has a membership of 40 units, scattered throughout the country, according to Dr Yu.

Following the principles of voluntary participation and mutual benefit, as stipulated in the China POPIN Constitution of 1989, he pointed out that many activities and projects are conducted among the network members in areas such as resource sharing, academic cooperation, training, exchange of experience and the application of modern information technologies.

Computer and communications technologies have made it possible to develop networking rapidly and enable easier sharing of resources. This is especially so for numerical and bibliographical databases accessible through the Internet. In 1996, CPIRC put its home page on the global POPIN Web site, and from 1998 began to release population information and data under the project entitled "ChinaPopInfo" at its own Web site, stated Dr Yu.

CPIRC uses the Internet as a platform to improve communications. "Through our own Web site, we can efficiently release information and data about China's population and reproductive health programmes to meet the information needs of domestic, subregional, regional and global users".

"Our commitment to regional population information development is a very strong one", concluded Dr Yu. "Although CPIRC faces many difficult challenges in the years ahead, with cooperation from the ESCAP secretariat and our counterparts in other POPIN member countries, we should be able to further strengthen all the good work that has been done up to now and make it possible for China and others in Asia-Pacific POPIN to meet the goals of the ICPD Programme of Action", he said.

"For my part, I am greatly honoured to be appointed to this post; I realize that for me it is not only an opportunity but also a challenge. I will try to work hard and live up to the expectations of my superiors".