BHUBANESWAR: International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), Mumbai in collaboration with Nabakrushna Choudhury Centre for Development Studies (NCDS), Bhubaneswar organised a three-day national seminar on 'Population and Health in the Context of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)' that ended on Friday. Head of Population Research Centre, Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) in Bangalore Prof KS James highlighted three major challenges facing the demographers in the country including data administering, creating good quality data and understanding the data in right perspective.
Prof MM Islam from University of Dhaka suggested for a collaborative effort by the South Asian countries towards addressing the SDGs. He also stressed on the need to ensure sustained flow of finance from foreign donors besides exploring the causes of failure of most countries in attaining the millennium development goals.
The three-day seminar addressed 20 broad themes on development scenario concerning the SDGs such as measurement of SDG indicators, gender issues, poverty, food security, nutrition, maternal and child health, urbanisat i o n , p o p u l ation and migration. Prof RB Kafle of Nepal pointed out that academicians and researchers being a part of the bigger group of stakeholders need to put across issues and experiences to the political leadership in bringing about better policies. Speaking on the occasion, Prof F Ram emphasised on use of modern technology to improve quality of data. There has been a positive change in terms of dissemination of data in the country in recent times, he said. Among others, NCDS director Prof Srijit Mishra and Prof Sanjay Kumar Mohanty also spoke.