Inter-regional workshop on reproductive health

COLOMBO: Society for International Development (SID) International Secretariat, Rome in collaboration with the SID Sri Lanka Chapter is hosting two important meetings in Colombo from February 28 to March 02 at the Galle Face Hotel.

In keeping with the SID's role as to foster dialogue on important issues on development, experts from South Asia and East Africa will participate in the workshop on "Public Private Sector Partnerships working for "reproductive health strategies for meeting the Millennium Development Goals".

This workshop held during February 26 and March 01 will examine how public and private sector actors can work together on the basis of shared objectives, strategies and agreed monitoring and evaluation criteria and how to create an environment where health is a fundamental right of people including within poor communities.

Immediately after the expert meeting SID public seminar on "Sexual and Reproductive Health" will be held on March 2nd at 4.15 p.m. at Galle Face Hotel.

Nimal Siripala de Silva, Minister of Healthcare and Nutrition will be the Chief Guest. Ms. Lubna Baqi UNFPA Representative Sri Lanka will be the Guest of Honour.

The seminar will explore the widening cracks in the international consensus reached at the historic United Nations International Conference on Population and Development Programme of action held in Cairo, September 1994.

It will consider these concerns particularly in the light of the Millennium Development Goals and the increasing concerns that women's reproductive health needs are not being met.

The seminar featuring public health and reproductive rights, experts from Italy, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Kenya and Sri Lanka will focus on the links between the human rights agenda, sexual and reproductive health and gender and macro-economic policies.

Open to specialists and non-specialists alike in the field, the seminar will debate how to ensure that sexual health and rights remains at the core of progressive, socially just human development.

The launch of the SID quarterly journal development: volume 48 No. 4 on Reproductive and Sexual Rights and Health will take place during the seminar.