Lankan elected Secretary General of APA

Dr. A. T. P. L. Abeykoon was recently elected to the post of Secretary General of the Asian Population Association (APA). APA is a regional association of population specialists promoting research on population issues in Asia. The APA has a membership representing 52 countries mostly from Asia.

Dr. Abeykoon was the Director of the Population Division in the Ministry of Health and is currently a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Health Policy. He holds a Masters Degree in population studies from Cornell University and MS and PhD in population planning from the University of Michigen, Ann Arbor. Dr. Abeykoon has served in the Ministries of Economic Planning, Plan Implementation and Health for nearly four decades and has contributed immensely to the field of demography in Sri Lanka and in the formulation and implementation of population policies and strategies. He was the President of the Population Association of Sri Lanka during 1998 and 2002. His research has been published in many national and international journals. He is a visiting lecturer at the Post Graduate Institute of Medicine and at the Department of Demography of the University of Colombo. Dr. Abeykoon has a wide range of experience as a consultant.

He was a Consultant to the Planning Commission of the government of Bangladesh and to the National Commission on Population and Family Planning, government of Vietnam. He has also served as a short term consultant to the Population Division of United Nations ESCAP.