Annual Report 2002

The vision of the INDEPTH Network is to harness the collective potential of the world's community-based longitudinal demographic surveillance initiatives in resource-constrained countries to provide a better, empirical understanding of health and social issues, and to apply this understanding to alleviate the most severe health and social challenges. Looking atcompleted and ongoing cross-site initiatives of the Network in 2002, as reported in this document, INDEPTH is indeed on the right track towards realising its vision and achieving itskey objectives.

The second INDEPTH Annual General and Scientific Meeting (AGM) was held on 21-24 January 2002 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. It marked a momentous period in the history of the  Network. At this meeting the INDEPTH Strategic Plan was adopted by the General Assembly after about a year-long process of development. Key participants in this process were the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) in the US, INDEPTH site leaders and the former Co-ordinating Committee of the Network. INDEPTH then became an incorporated body, transformed from its former ad-hoc status into a full-fledged not-for-profit international organisation. It was registered in Ghana where its permanent Secretariat is located in the capital city of Accra.