PMNCH Board meets in New York
02-04 MAY 2012 | UNFPA, NEW YORK
Note to members from Director, Carole Presern
The Partnership for Maternal, Newborn & Child Health Board members held a successful spring board meeting in New York USA, kindly hosted by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). As well as the launch event and reception for the Born Too Soon: The Global Action Report on Preterm Birth, UNFPA and DFID also took the opportunity to convene a Stakeholder Consultation for the up-coming Family Planning Summit planned for July 2012. World Vision International hosted a dinner for participants on the evening of 3rd May.
The key objectives of the meeting were to discuss current on-going initiatives and position and synergize these under the existing framework of the UN Secretary-General’s Every Woman Every Child effort. The board also continued discussions on RMNCH financing, following the report presented by the Task Team on RMNCH financing, which proposed options to strengthen and coordinate global financing channels for RMNCH following the board decision in October 2011.
New PMNCH Board members
I would like to take the opportunity to welcome all new PMNCH Board members. Kate Gilmore, Deputy Executive Director, Programme, UNFPA, has joined the Board (replacing Purnima Mane, who assumed a new role as Director of Pathfinder International earlier this year).
We welcomed the new Academics, Research and Training institutions (ART) constituency Board member and alternate (replacing former Board member and Co-Chair, Vinod Paul) Dr Elwyn Chomba, Paediatrician, Senior Consultant and Permanent Secretary, Zambian Ministry of Community Development, Mother and Child Health, representing the University of Zambia on the Board. Dr Chomba was the first female doctor in Zambia, and has had a distinguished medical career. The ART Alternate Board member is Dr Yan Guo, Professor at the School of Public Health, Peking University China, Beijing, China.
For first time since the Board approved the creation of a Private Sector constituency, we welcomed the newly- elected representatives of this constituency: Craig Friderichs, Head of Health for GSM Association (an alliance representing more than 800 mobile operators), on the Alliance seat, with Sharon d’Agostino, Vice President, Worldwide Corporate Contributions and Community Relations at Johnson & Johnson and Sylvia Mulinge General Manager: Enterprise Business Unit at Safaricom Limited, for the second seat and alternate positions respectively.
The representatives of the Private Sector were elected following consultations to set criteria and objectives with the constituency and the PMNCH Executive Committee, to ensure process and due diligence.
Please join me in giving a warm welcome to all new PMNCH Board members. I am especially pleased with the sectoral and geographical diversity that the new members add to our already diverse Board, which will be key in working to further reflect and engage our many new members---which have increased 50% in the past two years! You may find graphs which exemplify that growth and PMNCH membership breakdown on the links on your right.
I also urge you to follow the links on the right to the full set of May 2012 PMNCH Board documents, the Born Too Soon Report and accompanying resources. We look forward to your participation in the important events and discussions of the coming months regarding to further advance reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health.
