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| May 8, 2003 | Thursday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 5, 1424 |
$3.4m ADB grant for the poor okayed: Access to health services
ISLAMABAD, May 7: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved $3.4 million assistance for Pakistan to promote access to health services and nutrition for the poor, particularly marginalized women and children, says a Press release issued here on Wednesday.
The grant comes from ADB’s Japan Fund for Poverty Reduction (JFPR).
According to the release, the project will be carried out in six districts —- three in Sindh (Badin, Shikarpur and Mirpur Khas), two in Balochistan (Panjur and Khuzdar), and one in NWFP (D.I.Khan).
It will promote mechanisms such as: cost sharing with communities, collective community transport arrangements with links to other health services, child development and nutrition interventions through families and community-based learning centres, and performance and poverty impact-based budget allocations to local government.
Other major activities include monitoring and poverty impact assessment and project management.
“This is first JFPR project for Pakistan and the first to tackle health and nutrition issues for the poor in South Asia,.” says Axel Weber, an ADB social project specialist.
He said a more preventive approach rather than just emphasising treatment of illness would be essential to overcome rampant malnutrition among the poor in Pakistan.
The project will pilot cost-effective mechanisms to address living standards for poor mothers and their young children, building on the synergies with an ADB Women’s Health project approved in 1999 and an early childhood development project in the pipeline for 2002-2004.
It will pioneer better access to transport, communications (such as telephones), and lifesaving drugs, and will give support to district hospitals, special community training will be also devised on risk factors for maternal morality.
To improve nutritional care, micronutrients will be provided to pregnant women, adolescent girls and breastfeeding women in the project areas, while children under 5 will receive nutritional supplements and deworming treatment.
In all target districts, malaria is a major cause of death, illness and malnutrition, especially among young children and pregnant women.
To help reduce the risks and break the cycle of ill health and malnutrition, mosquito nets will be distributed among pregnant women and young children and home based treatment of malaria promoted.
The JFPR project will complement the government’s education sector reforms package by promoting early childhood learning through families and communities, as well as early learning advisors.
Activities will include training and funding of child development advisors, the establishment of model early learning centres for children aged 2-5, and providing teaching materials in communities and learning centres.
The total cost is estimated at $4.21 million, of which communities will contribute $600,000 local and line governments $100,000 and NGOs and others $100,000.
The executing agency is the Ministry of Health and its provincial departments. the project will be conducted over three years until 2006.
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