Sindh government makes family planning top priority

The Sindh government has announced family planning as the most important task over the next two years and beyond.

This decision has been taken in the light of Pakistan’s international commitment made at the Family Planning 2020 (FP2020) London Summit. The Sindh government has taken the lead in Pakistan and already launched a Costed Implementation Plan (CIP) which has been under implementation in 11 districts for the last one year, but now it will be implemented in all the 29 districts of the province.

A meeting held on Friday chaired by Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, MNA and the chair, Sindh FP2020 Taskforce, made the decision. The meeting was attended by Dr Fazlullah Pechuho, secretary, health; Laeeq Ahmed, secretary, Population Welfare Department (PWD); Shahnaz Wazir Ali, provincial technical coordinator for Oversight and Coordination Cell; Dr Talib Lashari, technical advisor (CIP), Population Welfare Department; Dr Fawad Shaikh, member social sector, Planning & Development Board; all divisional commissioners; all deputy commissioners; district health officers; district population welfare officers; and other government functionaries.

According to the decision, all divisional commissioners and deputy commissioners will supervise the birth spacing services under CIP being imparted by the Population Welfare Department, Health Department, its programs by lady health workers, Maternal Child Health Program, PPHI Sindh and NGOs.

District health and population officers will be responsible for taking the lead in the implementation of CIP. The deputy commissioners will make sure that the district- level implementation report is submitted to the CIP Secretariat of the Population Welfare Department in the first week of each month.

It was decided that the DCs will review progress on a monthly basis in their respective districts while the Sindh FP2020 Taskforce will review the progress on a quarterly basis. While chairing the meeting, Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho, Member National Assembly (MNA), said that the results of the census of 2017 present an alarming picture that Pakistan has become a fast-growing country while we know that resources are scarce; thus, development and economic growth will be hampered if we cannot take into account the population growth factor.

She said Sindh has taken the lead in implementing FP2020 commitments. Thus, we will not only fulfil our international commitment but can also reduce fertility to achieve economic growth in Sindh and Pakistan.

Shahnaz Wazir Ali said that progress can be accelerated through birth spacing programs. The FP2020 initiative and the roadmap of Costed Implementation Plan have the potential to increase Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) in a significant manner.

Dr Fazlullah Pechuho, Secretary said that the Health Department would work with the Population Welfare Department to achieve the family planning/CIP objectives. He said lady health workers of the department would refer potential clients to special camps of CIP and routine camps of the PWD, and all hospitals would impart post-pregnancy family planning services.

Laeeq Ahmed, secretary of the PWD, said that CIP was a roadmap of the department as well as of other relevant departments and NGOs for FP2020. It had accelerated the pace of activities for the past more than one year, he said, adding that all the 72 reproductive health services centres and 961 family welfare centres of the PWD would accelerate efforts to achieve the family planning goals.

Dr Talib Lashari, technical advisor (CIP), provided details of the implementation of the program for the next two years at provincial and district levels. He informed the meeting that 22 per cent of was the unmet need at provincial level, it was the percentage of those married women who intended to space or limit child-bearing but they did not have access to family planning services.

He said that in order to achieve 45 per cent of Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPR) by 2020, Sindh required to reach out to at least 9,86,000 additional users (new) over the next two years. In this regard, each district has been provided with its minimum number of additional users to be reached. The progress will be reviewed on monthly and quarterly bases. During the meeting, the divisional commissioners, deputy commissioners, DHOs and DPWOs presented a progress review of their respective districts.