Committee Meetings

International Advisory Committee

Annual Meeting on 3 December 2005

On 3 December 2005, the AUICK International Advisory Committee held an annual meeting at the conference room of Hyatt Regency Surabaya, Indonesia.

Opening

Mr. Kazutoshi Sasayama, Chairman of AUICK, opened the meeting by describing briefly the activities of AUICK and thanking the IAC members for their support. He proposed that Dr. Harynono Suyono chair the meeting which was unanimously endorsed by the IAC members. Dr. Haryono Suyono agreed to chair the meeting, and invited Dr. Ghazy Mujahid, Advisor on Population Policies and Development, UNFPA CST in Bangkok, to make opening remarks. Dr. Mujahid expressed his appreciation to the AUICK Secretariat for inviting him to attend the meeting. He mentioned that UNFPA is currently concerned with two major issues. One of them is to forge closer linkage between the regional projects and the UNFPA country programs. He further suggested that since the AUICK project deals with wider issues than the main field of UNFPA, AUICK may consider liaising more closely with other UN agencies such as UNICEF and ILO. The second concern deals with the substantive issues of UNFPA. While reproductive health issues including HIV/AIDS continue to be the main focus of the Fund, it is increasingly concerned with aging issues and their implications to gender consideration since in most of the Asian countries women outlive men. Domestic violence against women is another issue of concern for the Fund.

Report on Main Activities in 2005

Training

The Secretariat reported that AUICK organized two workshops in 2005 on "Adolescent Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS" and on "Universalization of Primary Education for Urban Poor." The Secretariat mentioned that the case studies on the themes of the workshops were: two studies from Surabaya and Khon Kaen on the first theme and two studies from Chittagong and Chennai on the second theme. A preliminary study on population and environmental protection issues in Weihai was conducted by the Secretariat to prepare for a future case study. The Secretariat then identified the two main problems with the workshops. One of them is related to the qualification of the participants. It is not always easy to get those qualified nominees who are in decision-making positions although AUICK relied on the help of the concerned UNFPA country offices and IAC members. The second problem is related to the Plan of Action (POA), which was introduced since the first workshop in 2005. It was apparently very difficult for the participants to prepare the adequate POAs by the end of the workshop session in part due to the limited amount of time.

Research: Case Studies

The case studies were also prepared for and presented at the two workshops. The selection of the theme of the workshop was not necessarily appropriate for Kobe and other cities. For example, the Universalization of Primary Education was not very useful for Kobe, Danang and Weihai because they had achieved that sometime earlier.

Information Dissemination and Management Activities

In 2005 two issues of the AUICK Newsletter were scheduled to be published. The Issue No. 44 focused on the Second 2004 Workshop. The Issue No. 45 focused on the First 2005 Workshop, and was published by the end of January 2006. The new book "ASIAN URBANIZATION IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM" was published by Marshall Cavendish Academic in March 2005. IAC and the Secretariat expressed its appreciation to two co-editors - Dr. Gayl D. Ness and Dr. Prem Talwar - for their valuable contribution. The conversion of all the undigitalized documents into html files has been already completed. The digitalized data will be uploaded on the AUICK Web-site by the end of December.

Mainstreaming of AUICK activities

Dr. Ando informed the IAC that AUICK has initiated the "mainstreaming" of its activities into UNFPA country programs as recommended by Dr. Sultan Aziz, Director of Asia and the Pacific Division of UNFPA and Dr. M. Giridhar, Director of CST in Bangkok. In Indonesia, Dr. Haryono has been in touch with the UNFPA Country Director in Jakarta in addition to facilitating the establishment of networks between Surabaya and other Indonesian cities. For Khon Kaen, in conjunction with the monitoring visit, he approached with the help of Dr. Krasae the National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA) in Bangkok and the UNFPA Office to formulate a modest project to establish a viable MIS in Khon Kaen. UNFPA Office kindly provided financial and technical support to the needs assessment mission of Dr. Adis Isarangkun of NIDA in May 2005. In August, Dr. Ando met with the senior city officials including the Vice-Mayor and a number of highly qualified researchers at the University of Danang who are willing to help the city increase its capacity to manage population and urbanization issues. He has also been in consultation with the UNFPA Country Director to link more closely the AUICK activities to the UNFPA country program of Vietnam.

Mid-term review by UNFPA

The IAC members were also informed by Dr. Ando that UNFPA conducted a mid-term evaluation of the AUICK project among other regional projects through a questionnaire.

Activities for 2006

Training

IAC recommended that the First 2006 Workshop deal with environmental issues and the Second 2006 Workshop treat population ageing. It also recommended that case studies for the first workshop be on the experience of Weihai and Chittagong in dealing with environmental issues and those for the second on that of Surabaya and Chennai. Dr. Krasae suggested that better POAs may be developed by the workshop participants if a simple sample is sent to the participants in advance. Dr. Talwar also suggested that there should be more frequent or continuous process of POA formulation throughout the workshop session. There should be more time allocated to it. The Secretariat agreed to their suggestions.

Information Dissemination

With regard to AUICK publication activities, Dr. Haryono suggested that a simple brochure to introduce AUICK be produced. Dr. Mujahid suggested that AUICK should promote itself more internationally, in particular through attending regional and international meetings. This will help increase the visibility of AUICK.

Research: Case Studies

IAC agreed that the Secretariat select the authors of the case studies on environmental issues in Weihai and Chittagong. For this purpose, the Secretariat may further consult with the IAC members through e-mail. The case study on ageing in Surabaya will be prepared by Dr. Haryono, while the other paper on ageing may be prepared by someone in Chennai or in Kerala in consultation with Dr. Talwar.

Mainstreaming of AUICK activities

IAC endorsed the continued work of the Secretariat to further pursue the linking of the AUICK project with UNFPA country programs, in particular in Surabaya, Khon Kaen and Danang. This will require the revision of the work plan and budgetary provisions mainly related to missions of the Secretariat staff and one or two IAC members to these cities. The Secretariat will visit on its way home the UNFPA Office in Jakarta with Dr. Haryono to explore the mode of mainstreaming of the AUICK project into the UNFPA Country Program for Indonesia. The mainstreaming activities may require some budgetary revisions. Dr. Ness strongly suggested that in order to effectively link the AUICK project with UNFPA country programs, it is necessary to make institutional rather than ad hoc arrangements. For that purpose, he proposed that the experience of an ESCAP family planning action research be considered.

Management Issues

IAC agreed with the Secretariat proposal to have its next meeting in November 2006. Dr. Ness suggested that the future annual meetings should be held in each of the AACs so that the political incentive shall be given to each mayor of AACs, while the political incentive to Mayor of Kobe will be given through the workshops to be held in Kobe. After some discussions, the next meeting was tentatively decided to be held in Kobe.

Other Matters

The main monitoring method of interviewing the past workshop participants with their supervisors and peers now combined with POA was complemented by IAC especially in view of the fact that the monitoring session in Surabaya revealed that it had generated a considerable amount of political commitment not only to the AUICK project but also to the POA of the workshop participant from Surabaya. The Secretariat in consultation with IAC will continue to explore more effective monitoring methods.

Participants

IAC Members

Prem P. Talwar
    Adjunct Professor, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina (India)
Haryono Suyono
    Former Minister Coordinator for People Welfare and Poverty Alleviation (Indonesia)
Krasae Chanawongse
    Advisor to the Prime Minister (Thailand)
Gayl D. Ness
    Professor Emeritus, University of Michigan (USA)
Ghazy Mujahid
    Advisor on Population Policies and Development, UNFPA CST in Bangkok, representing Mr. Kunio Waki, Executive Director of UNFPA

AUICK Secretariat

Kazutoshi Sasayama, Chairman
Hirofumi Ando, President
Yoshikane Fujimoto, Executive Director
Nobuyuki Morimoto, Deputy Executive Director
Midori Sumiyoshi, Staff