Program & Service Delivery
- Contraceptive services are part of the essential service package of provinces and task shifting suggested in the HSS and costed operational plans do take care of the inclusion of these services in various ways.
- With USAID support, Pakistan has received more than $147 million in the form of soft and hardware support around supply chain and health commodities; as well as contraceptive commodities alone worth $52 million in the last three years. The USAID has now pledged financial support to the tune of $44 million for the years 2013-14, thereby enabling Pakistan to meet 50 percent of the national requirement. The Planning and Development Division too has allocated Rs2.8 billion ($30 million) for the procurement of contraceptives till June 2015.
- Local supply chain managers have been trained and a web based program has been rolled out to all 143 districts, allowing for much improved data visibility into contraceptive use at the lower levels of the health system.
- The government of Sindh province is working with Pop Council on developing a training program for lady health workers; other provinces are exploring.
- There has not been progress made on working more intensively with religious and community leaders to promote benefits of birth spacing.
- Population Council has recently carried out research on involvement of men in family planning decisions. The study was carried out in Punjab and it was found that men in Punjab are showing greater concern than hitherto about the size of their families and spacing between children.
- The country has been running family planning initiatives and interventions for years, but the fact is that there is still insufficient societal knowledge about the subject.
Financial
- Annual public spending on family planning (total)
- 2011/2012 – $151 million ($ 0.84 per capita)
- 2012/2013 – $35 million (No data provided-per capita)
- 2013/2014 – $83 million (No data provided-per capita)
- Pakistan is confident that that the supply of contraceptives currently being provided by a USAID program, which runs till June 2014, will be covered by the government after June 2014. Pakistan had earmarked Rs 2.3 billion for 2012-15 to procure contraceptives, but the money was not utilized. It will now be used after June 2014 when the donor’s contraceptive supplies will come to an end.
Policy & Political
- The province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has been proactively working to reduce high fertility and promoting birth spacing and mother and child health care; 110 Family Welfare Centres have been established.
- The Minister of State for National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination in January 2014 convened a meeting where it was decided to create an oversight body to evaluate the performance of the provincial population welfare program and to guide provinces. During the meeting, it was decided that that federal government will create a guidance on population policy and that the provinces will formulate similar policies; it will be aligned to achieving MDGs and the London Summit commitment; there will be more coordination between the health and population sectors; and the National Task Force on Population Welfare will be created to oversee funding and the supply of contraceptives to provinces.
- Sustained political commitment is one of the key and challenging areas to realize progress that requires sufficient allocation of funds. The partnerships with like-minded groups and individuals need to be formed to persuade national and local leaders that family planning needs high-level attention to accelerate the development process for improving quality of life of people.
