4th National Consultative meeting: Provinces committed to addressing population crisis

ISLAMABAD: The provinces on Wednesday showed their commitment to address the population crisis in the country.

The 4th National Consultative meeting on Population and Development was organised by the Planning Commission on December 23, 2020, where all the provinces and regions were invited to share progress and plans to meet the national population goals. This meeting was fourth in a series of national consultative meetings, focused on gauging the headway made by the provinces towards addressing the population crises.

In her opening remarks, Member Social Sector Dr Shabnum Sarfaraz steered the discussion towards the critical agenda of the meeting i.e. sharing of provincial experiences vis-à-vis contraceptives’ procurement and efforts made to increase family planning services uptake in their respective provinces. She also emphasised on the potential of unplanned population growth in eroding any advances made towards achieving the socio-economic development and economic growth, exacting an urgent need at both the national and provincial levels to focus more on achieving family planning goals.

Dr Shahid Nadeem from the Ministry of National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination (MoNHSR&C) gave an overview of the overall contraceptive stock at both national and provincial levels, highlighted the barriers related to pooled procurement and the steps taken to address the challenges.

The additional secretary Population and Welfare Department, Punjab, shared the successful experiences of engaging religious scholars to promote uptake of family planning services and expediting registration of newly-married couples.

From Sindh, Shah Faisal Zahir, Director Population Welfare Department, briefed the attendees about the key activities taken up in the provinces, in terms of launching reproductive health-seeking behavior services at major private hospitals, which would augment the family planning services.

Asghar Ali, Secretary Population Welfare Department, KPK, stated that they have sufficient contraceptive stocks for short and medium-term supplies in place for the next six months. ‘We have also streamlined the technical proposals for procurement and are following the procurement model used at the national level for pooled procurement’. These steps were lauded by the participants.

Deputy Director, Population Welfare Department, Abdul Sattar Shahwani shared that the current allocation for the provision of family planning services needs to be revised and enhanced to meet the needs of the province. Moreover, he also committed that Balochistan will also be undertaking pooled procurement method to ensure a streamlined procedure and prevent duplication of resources.

Director General, Population Welfare Department Azad Jammu & Kashmir, Muhammad Zeeshan Arif, shared that the region has already completed pooled procurement with the federal levels and has initiated advocacy campaigns for Ulema, notables and elected representatives for a more efficient dissemination of the family planning message.