Thursday, August 23, 2012

UN population fund director to meet with Burmese leaders

0 comments
 
Thursday, 23 August 2012 15:44 Mizzima News

The executive director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, will arrive in Burma for three days of talks starting on Monday.

UNFPA works with the Burmese government and others in improving reproductive health, development and the empowerment of women and young people.

Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin, the executive director of UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, and a UN Under Secretary-General Photo: UNFPA

Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin is scheduled to meet with President Thein Sein and the ministers of Health, Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement, Planning, Foreign Affairs and Immigration and Population, in addition to the Speaker of Parliament and other lawmakers, and with National League for Democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

He will also meet with representatives of UN agencies, civil society and the business community.

Topics to be discussed include

  •  UNFPA’s new four-year (2012-2015) Programme of Assistance to support of the National Rural Development and Poverty Alleviation Plan.
  • Efforts to improve maternal health and birth spacing services, designed to save the lives of mothers and infants and support reproductive rights.
  • The planned 2014 population and housing census, the country’s first in 31 years, which will provide data essential to national development efforts.
  • The need for a comprehensive programme to empower the 30 per cent of Burma’s population aged 10-24.

He will also meet with members of Myanmar’s newly formed Parliamentary Committee on Population and Social Development.

Osotimehin, a former Nigerian minister of health, has headed UNFPA since January 2011.

Leave a Reply