India has committed to double the annual contribution to the Partners in Population Development (PPD) and announced 10 scholarships for the PG Diploma Course in Public Health Management for one more year at the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare in Delhi for the participating countries.

This was announced by Union minister for health Ghulam Nabi Azad in his inaugural address at the board meeting of the PPD, an inter governmental alliance of 24 countries, held at Yogyakarta, Indonesia from 26 to 28 October 2010. India is the chairman of PPD while China is the co-chair of the organisation. During the three-day meetings, intense deliberations were held to strengthen the PPD movement. A two-day international conference on 'Promoting Family Planning and Maternal Health for Poverty alleviation' was organised by PPD on this occasion. During the Annual Board meeting, five countries namely Sri Lanka, Nepal, Brazil, Philippines and Tanzania participated as observers who wanted to join the movement. Mexico expressed its interest to revive its membership.

In his opening remark, Azad announced enhanced annual contribution of India from the current level of US$ 40000 to US$ 80000 and urged the participating countries to increase their contributions to strengthen the alliance. He also announced 10 scholarships for the PG diploma course. India had offered these scholarships last year for which 9 students from the participating countries enrolled for the course, according to an official release.

The PDP alliance provides the mechanism to promote partnership and cooperation between the member countries, to achieve the objectives of the International Conference on Population Development (ICPD) and also the MDGs. PPD has a permanent observer status at the UN General Assembly. PPD was launched during ICPD meeting in Cairo in 1994. The alliance includes countries such as India, China, Pakistan,Bangladesh, Indonesia, Egypt, South Africa and Kenya. The PPD member countries represent more than 57 per cent of global population.

“India had offered 10 fellowships for the PG Diploma Course in Public Health Management for one year and nine participants from Tunisia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Gambia, Thailand, China and Nigeria are now undertaking this fellowship programme. I am happy to announce that we have decided to award 10 more such scholarships for the year 2011-12,” Azad said.

“We also need to take up on priority, an effective strategy for knowledge management that includes establishment of learning sites, designing online courses on reproductive health and setting-up centres of excellence to demonstrate low cost innovations,’’ he added.