The East and South-East Asia POPIN Secretariat, in cooperation with the ESCAP Population and Rural and Urban Development Division, co-organized a consultative meeting at Beijing from 18 to 19 October 1999 for the benefit of the subregional network's members.    Thirteen participants took part in the meeting; they represented population information centres in China, Indonesia, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Thailand and Viet Nam. Funding for the Meeting was provided by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).

Ms Ja-Kyung Yoo, Chief of the ESCAP Population Information and Communication Unit, provides a briefing on a cooperative project for the construction of directory databases during the East and South-East Asia POPIN Consultative Meeting, which was held at Beijing from 18 to 19 October 1999.

   The major objectives of the meeting were to exchange and share experiences among the network members, and to draw up a cooperative work plan for carrying out information activities more effectively in the coming year and beyond.

   One of the highlights of the meeting was the presentation of the results of an Asia-Pacific POPIN survey conducted to evaluate IT (information technology) capabilities among members; another was a review of population information activities conducted by the subregional network's members in the past year. For the latter purpose, the representatives gave brief reports on the development of population information in their respective countries, and the various problems they faced in undertaking POPIN activities.

   Also at the meeting, the results of an evaluation of the 1999 IT-focused training workshop were reported and discussed, with suggestions given by the participants for improving next year's training workshop.

   The major topics for proposed cooperative activities were the following: (a) the preparation, editing, printing and distribution of the Asia-Pacific POPIN Bulletin, (b) inputs from network members to the Population Laws and Regulations, and the Reproductive Health Indicators databases, (c) the compilation of a directory of NGOs in the field of population and development, and updating databases, (d) creating subregional network homepages, (e) arrangement of TCDC programmes and technical assistance, and (f) the preparation of interesting project proposals.

   Furthermore, the work plan for the East and South-East Asia POPIN subregional network for the period from October 1999 to October 2000 was formulated.

   The meeting concluded by adopting a set of the recommendations under five headings, as follows:

Survey

   1. Asia-Pacific POPIN will provide a breakdown by country of its survey analysis, and distribute the revised report with the survey form to the countries concerned to enable them to conduct cross-country comparisons and use the form to conduct national POPIN surveys.

Meetings/training workshops

   2. Asia-Pacific POPIN is requested to invite managers of the parent organization of the national POPIN focal points to attend POPIN consultative meetings and/or other POPIN meetings to sensitize them concerning POPIN activities.

       Thirteen participants representing ten national population information centres in the subregion take part in the annual East and South-East Asia POPIN Consultative Meeting. The Meeting, in cooperation with ESCAP, provides them with an opportunity to exchange and share experiences among the network members.

   3. The meeting reiterated the recommendation endorsed at the last meeting regarding the nomination of the right persons to participate in the training workshops/meetings in order to maximize the benefit of the activities and the limited financial resources available. The meeting attributed the success of this year's training workshop to the IT skill surveys of the nominees and recommended using the same practice for future training workshops.

       Twenty-eight participants from ten countries in the Asian and Pacific region benefit from the training workshop on information technology which was organized by ESCAP and the China Population Information and Research Centre from 11 to 15 October 1999 at Beijing.

   4. Asia-Pacific POPIN is requested to continue to send “cc” copies of invitations to POPIN meetings and training workshops to the national POPIN focal points in the countries concerned.

   5. Teaching materials for the training workshops should give more narrative explanations on PowerPoint presentations in order to help the participants to review the contents of printouts of the presentations after workshop sessions.

Asia-Pacific POPIN Bulletin

   6. The Asia-Pacific POPIN Bulletin should include reports on the status of information technology (IT) and related activities in member countries in its “IT News” section. East and South-East Asia POPIN members are encouraged to contribute news items/articles and photos to this section.

   7. Each member country will appoint a correspondent for the Bulletin to facilitate communications between the members and the editor of the Bulletin. Asia-Pacific POPIN will issue a letter in cooperation with the secretariat of East and South-East Asia POPIN to the member institutions in the East and South-East Asia subregion, requesting nominations in this regard.

   8. The Bulletin should include a “people” section to announce changes of personnel in POPIN member institutions.

   9. The “Interview” section of the Bulletin should be reformatted as a “feature” section and include other types of articles, such as reports of meetings or articles on specific topics of interest: e.g. the impact of IT on adolescent reproductive health. Members are encouraged to contribute such articles for this section.

   10. Asia-Pacific POPIN should provide a map of member institutions in its Web site.

Directory databases

   11. Members of the subregional meeting agreed to participate in developing the NGO directory database on institutions; countries wishing to expand their databases to include research findings and experts are encouraged to do so.

   12. For the NGO database, Asia-Pacific POPIN will provide the data format with an electronic worksheet so that member countries can initiate the project.

   13. Updating of POPIN Directory Databases should be a continuing process undertaken by POPIN members, wherein Asia-Pacific POPIN should be informed of any changes in the records for the purpose of updating on the Internet.

Cooperative activities

   14. Members of the subregional meeting agreed to undertake cooperative projects in the following areas: