August 13, 2003 - Washington DC The World Bank and PAHO delivered the first global dialogue from a series of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Policy Dialogues the organizations will be offering to the Latin American and Caribbean region. The August dialogue, "Reducing Child Mortality" brought together local and international experts into a dynamic, interactive forum in which they were able to share their country's experiences and challenges in this field.

The organization and realization of the dialogue was a joint effort by the World Bank and the Pan American Health Organization. By way of the World Bank's Global Development Learning Network (GDLN) key actors in the region were given the opportunity to directly participate in the dialogue from their local GDLN center equipped with the videoconferencing technology which makes possible the direct interaction and participation. PAHO mobilized their field offices in the region to support the GDLN centers in identifying the appropriate local participants. The dialogue had to be offered in two sessions in order to accommodate the interest and demand for knowledge exchange in this subject from all the regional countries that confirmed their participation. A morning session was held with the participation of Bolivia, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela and a second session was held with the participation of the Central American countries of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Panama.

The dialogue initiated with the welcome words of Ana Maria Arriagada, Human Development
Sector Director for the World Bank's Latin America and Caribbean Region. Following the welcoming words, each participating country designated a local spokesperson who went on to provide a brief overview of the Child Mortality situation in their country and the local challenges being faced. Following the country presentations, Dr. Juan Carlos Bossio, Advisor for the Child and Adolescent Health Program for the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and Dr. Fernando Lavadenz, Public Health Specialist for the World Bank's Latin America and Caribbean Region each gave presentations on the work their respective organizations are carrying out in the field and presented regional trends the region faces in reducing child mortality. After each of the presentations provided by the PAHO and World Bank specialist, each country had the opportunity to present comments and questions which were then directly addressed by the speaker.

In response to the specific requests for further dialogues from the local participants, a virtual forum was set up which allows participants and speakers to post comments to the forum, points for further discussion and questions which they would like to see addressed. The global dialogue's virtual forum, the presentations, and agenda are all available by visiting the Reducing Child Mortality Global Dialogue link.

The objective of this first global dialogue was to provide the forum for information exchange among local and international experts which will lead to surfacing further issues and needs that must be addressed through increased dialogue, capacity-building, and knowledge-sharing initiatives in the region. By bringing together the technical expertise with the technology, the dialogue series promises to not have geographical limitations in the scope of its reach, but to be accessible to all interested parties.

To learn more about this activity or to learn of upcoming activities in the Health sector, please contact Carmen Carpio at ccarpio@worldbank.org