Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has stressed the need to actively promote family planning as it is central to improved health outcomes.

Addressing a two day international conference on “Evidence to Action: South-South Collaboration for ICPD beyond 2014” today, Mr.Azad said the renewed focus and repositioning of Family planning services at the global level to meet the challenges of population growth is a welcome development.

India is the current chair of the Group of 25 Developing countries, who are members of the inter-governmental partnership called Partners in Population and Development which is based in Dhaka.

About 120 delegates, including 10 ministers and senior officials from the respective planning commissions, ministry of health and ministry of finance from 25 countries are participating in the two day conference being organized as part of the annual meeting of the Partnership for Population and Development.

The delegates were impressed with India's efforts to provide universal access to family planning services as part of the National Rural Health Mission through 860,000 health workers.

The conference is expected to help the members of the Partnership for population development to formulate goals and strategies to address the future challenges of population growth following the conclusion of the Programme of Action (PoA) of the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) and the Minimum Development Goals (MDGs).

ICPD Programme of Action is expected to reach its conclusion in 2014 and the Millennium Development Goals in 2015.