Joint conference on Population and the Asian Century

Professor Peter McDonald, Director, Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute (ADSRI) along with five ADSRI staff - Professor Zhongwei Zhao, Dr Siew-Ean Khoo, Dr Iwu Utomo, Associate  Professor (adjunct) Dr Helen James, and Professor Jalal Abbasi-Shavazi - presented 15 papers on Asian demography at the Joint Conference on Population in the Asian Century, co-convened with Yangon University, Yangon, 4 - 5 February 2013.

The team also held two associated workshops at Yangon University, 6 - 7 February on Population and Development, and Mortality, Refugees and Migration.

The conference was opened by the Deputy Minister for Education, H.E. Professor Dr U Ba Shwe who also attended the conference dinner, held at Zephyr Restaurant on Inya Lake, close to Yangon University.  The Deputy Minister presented the closing address.  Papers were presented by Yangon University professors and others from other institutes in Yangon.

Around 150 people attended the four day set of activities and discussions including Rectors and senior professors from various other Myanmar universities and senior officials from the Department of Higher Education (Lower Myanmar). The Australian Embassy in Yangon sent a representative to attend the opening session of the conference.

This was the first such international conference held at Yangon University in more than ten years and elicited a great deal of interest.  Professor Dr Margaret Wong, Head of the History Department, and her colleagues from the Departments of Law and International Relations, joined with Associate Professor (adjunct) Dr Helen James in organizing the program which was presented under the aegis of the re-activated Memorandum of Understanding between the ANU and Yangon University, first negotiated in 2003. It is intended that this conference will be the forerunner of other similar academic and research training activities in demography designed to revive the discipline in Myanmar ahead of the 2014 national Census.