Forum 9 brought together around 600 participants from 90 countries. It was opened by the President of India, His Excellency Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, together with the Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Dr A Ramadoss. Major themes were: targeting the poor; health innovations in rapidly developing countries (e.g. India, Brazil, South Africa); neglected diseases and conditions (e.g. mental health, road traffic injuries); equity (including considerations of gender, disability and race in health research); research capacity strengthening; reproduction and development; policies, priorities and resources (including resource flows and assessment tools).

Highlights included:

• pre-launch of the World Development Report 2006: Equity and Development ( see website)
• inaugural meeting of the International Network on Disabilty, Health and Wellbeing
• first public release of the findings of the Reaching the Poor Program, undertaken by the World Bank with the Gates Foundation and the Dutch and Swedish Governments ( see website)
• a number of pre- and post-conference satellite meetings

Theme rapporteurs' reports

Theme rapporteurs covered the major strands running through Forum 9 and submitted a report to the Global Forum. These themes included: poverty; equity; innovation; neglected diseases and conditions; policies, priorities and resources; sexual and reproductive health and research capacity strengthening. The reports summarize the themes as addressed in the plenary, parallel and poster sessions.

• General overview, by Lucy Gilson
• Poverty, by Caroline Nyamai-Kisia
• Equity, by Lenore Manderson
• Innovation, by Charles Gardner
• Neglected diseases, by Homero Martinez
• Policies, priorities and resources, by Catherine Michaud
• Sexual and reproductive health, by Marianne Haslegrave
• Research capacity strengthening, by Ritu Sadana