This year the theme of the conference is 'Partnerships in Achieving the Millennium Development Goals.'

Since 1991, ASCON has been the platform for disseminating research findings of ICDDR'B to healthcare providers, health planners, administrators, medical educators, policy and decision makers, donor community and other development organisations.

The inaugural function of the three-day conference was held at the Radisson Water Garden Hotel yesterday.

Inaugurating the function, Health Adviser Major General (Retd) Dr ASM Matiur Rahman said the GDP growth rate has to be raised to seven percent on average to achieve the poverty reduction target as envisaged in the Millenium Development Goals.

He said the government intends to adopt a medium-term pro-poor macro-economic framework from the next fiscal year.

The adviser said Bangladesh might be one of only six countries from among the developing world that is poised to be successful in reducing the mortality of under-5 children by two-thirds within 2015.

Dr Matiur identified HIV/AIDS as one of the recent emerging issues that has been taken seriously by the government with several measures, including national committee for the prevention of HIV/AIDS, safe blood transfusion programme, and HIV/AIDS prevention projects.

Prof Henry Mosley of the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA presented the keynote paper at the inaugural function.

In his paper titled 'Transforming Health Systems to Facilitate the Household Production of Health in Developing Countries,' Prof Henry identified three key issues confronting the production of health in developing countries.

These are obstacles in making investments in health interventions more effective and efficient, ensuring greater equity in access to the knowledge, skills and technologies that facilitate the production of health, and sustainable health outcomes.

The inaugural function was also addressed by ICDDR'B Executive Director David A Sack MD, Deputy Executive Director Alejandro Cravioto and Prof Dr Richard Cash of USA.