Wasim Zaman, UNFPA’s Representative for India, heads a professional staff of 12, with 8 support personnel. The budget for the new five-year country programme (1997-2001) amounts to $100 million.

Wasim, born in Bangladesh, inherited his deep sense of public service from his family. After several years as a civil servant in Pakistan and Bangladesh, he has spent nearly a decade with UNFPA, with assignments in Bangladesh, Ghana, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal and Nigeria as well as New York. He holds a PhD degree from Harvard University in population sciences.

He manages the programme with a flair and attention to detail that surprises even those he works with day in and day out. "A friend of mine once told me that in order to be a good country representative, you have to be part elephant, so as not to forget anything, and part eagle, so you can see trouble coming far ahead. That seems about right," he says. Wasim seems to manage the unlikely combination. He has only praise for his team: "Besides the enormous amount of work we perform every day, when problems arise we deal with them immediately."

The Fund’s new programme comes at a critical time. "The country has made a major policy shift in its approach to health care and family welfare," points out Wasim. "UNFPA is supporting these dramatic changes because of our concern for reproductive health."

Among major policy advances, new laws strengthen the existing Panchayati Raj system of local government, reserving one-third of all panchayat seats for women. Anyone running for a local panchayat seat must have no more than two children in order to qualify.

There is a new willingness on the part of government to work with national, regional and local NGOs and citizens’ action groups. Inter-sectoral collaboration, particularly between the Ministries of Health and Family Welfare, Social Action, and Women and Child Development, has been enhanced at both the central and the district levels, and inter-sectoral population commissions have been set up in some states, for instance, in Rajasthan.

The government has replaced the system of targets and incentives for family planning acceptors with a more quality-based approach to reproductive health. The new National Policy for the Empowerment of Women will integrate gender issues into development strategies. Finally, sex education for adolescents is being introduced in both formal and non-formal educational sectors.

"These are all very positive developments," says Wasim. "The decentralization of authority, the renewed emphasis on empowering women and the willingness on the part of the central government to work with NGOs usher in a new era of development cooperation for the United Nations system, in general, and for UNFPA, in particular. UNFPA’s new country programme reflects these changes and builds on them. "

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