ISLAMABAD, Dec 1: The participants of an international conference on population that concluded here on Thursday pledged enhanced cooperation to address population issues at the regional level. The three-day conference on “Linkage between population and Millennium Development Goals: The Asian Perspective” was organized by the Population Association of Pakistan (PAP) in collaboration with international donors. At the end of the day, the participants coming from 16 regional countries acknowledged that it was the need of the hour to share each other’s experience in the population sector.

Speaking on behalf of international participants, Dr Jalal of Tehran university thanked the PAP for organizing the conference at this juncture of time.

He informed the participants that the idea to set the Asian Population Association (APA) on the lines of American Population Association or European Population Association to further strengthen efforts focussed on family planning.

Asian continent has a unique characteristic which carries unity within diversity, he said, adding that “Asian countries more or less are undergoing same kinds of demographic transitions and can really work together in the population sector”.