“High-impact practices” for sustainable population growth

ISLAMABAD: Population Council has unveiled a comprehensive set of high-impact practices during the National Seminar on Best Bets for Accelerating Family Planning in Pakistan. The council revealed the potential practices in a seminar aimed at showcasing evidence-based solutions known as “Best Bets” that offer viable strategies to address Pakistan’s challenges.

The event was attended by federal and provincial government officials, representatives of international organisations, donor agencies, and civil society groups. The solutions presented were developed by the Population Council with support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

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In her welcome address, Dr. Zeba Sathar, Country Director of the Population Council, urged federal and provincial governments to integrate these high-impact practices into their development agendas to improve maternal and child health indicators while promoting sustainable population growth.

Population Council emphasised the critical importance of increased funding, subsidised services through voucher schemes, the reinforcement of community-based health systems via Community Midwives (CMWs), and the active engagement of the private healthcare sector.

Dr. Nadeem Jan, the Federal Minister for National Health Services Regulations and Coordination, stressed the necessity of investing in robust data systems to gauge programmatic progress.

A panel discussion during the seminar highlighted the need for increased investment in family planning. Dr. Hanid Mukhtar, a former senior economist at the World Bank, pointed out that Pakistan’s public expenditure on population services has received low and decreasing budgetary priority. Despite a moderate increase in funding over the past four years, a substantial portion of the budget is allocated to wages and salaries, rather than the procurement of contraceptives, facilities, and trained staff.

Former Senator Farhat Ullah Babar stressed that the weightage given to population in the NFC Award incentivises population growth and recommended empowering local governments, women-centric decision-making, and the utilization of Lady Health Workers (LHWs) to enhance access to family planning services.

During the seminar, the Population Council also presented data from a study on private sector involvement in rural areas of Islamabad, demonstrating that service delivery through male family physicians can stimulate male engagement in decisions related to birth spacing.

Dr. Iqbal Shah, a Senior Scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health, shared that research shows that engaging private sector providers was not only feasible but also acceptable to the people.