ISLAMABAD: Greater investment in population planning is essential for Pakistan to accelerate its progress across social, economic and environmental fronts and achieve sustainable development, parliamentarians said on Tuesday.

They also agreed that legislators can play a critical role to translate the government’s commitment at the highest level to provide universal access to comprehensive reproductive healthcare.

Parliamentarians were speaking at the second meeting of the Parliamentary Forum on Population, organised by the Population Council with support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Islamabad.

The forum was launched in March and aims to raise parliamentary awareness on population and development, sustain cross party political commitment and advocate for population stabilisation.

In his opening remarks, PML-N Senator Mushahid Hussain Syed said that the multiparty commitment to accelerate fertility transition in Pakistan is an important step to meet the country’s population challenge.

Citing the success in fertility decline by neighbouring Muslim countries Iran, Bangladesh and Indonesia, he reaffirmed the government’s role in providing quality reproductive health and family planning services to meet Pakistan’s population challenges and improve citizens’ wellbeing.

Parliamentary Secretary on National Health Services Dr Nausheen Hamid said that the government is giving due consideration to the population issue and there was a cross party consensus on dealing with it.

She said the present government continues to advocate for population stabilisation both inside and outside parliament.

“Poverty alleviation programmes such as the Ehsaas programme focuses on marginalised women and their reproductive health needs. We continue to engage ulemaf or more social acceptance of family planning amongst the masses,” she said.

Sindh Minister for Health and Population Welfare Dr Azra Fazal Pechuho reiterated the Sindh government’s commitment to ensuring universal access to family planning services across the province.

She highlighted provincial developments on the Council of Common Interests’ (CCI) recommendations to optimiSe access to counselling by lady health workers, the availability of contraceptives and trained paramedical staff at basic health units so that family health services become easily available, particularly in rural areas.

“The Sindh government has allotted Rs5 billion for year 2020-21 as the provincial budget for family planning. While Sindh has been progressive on passing bills on [child marriage] and domestic violence in the past, this year we will table various other bills such as the Nikkah Registration Bill and the Telehealth Bill in the Sindh Assembly,” Dr Pechuho said.

During the meeting, the Population Council presented a scorecard measuring the progress political parties have made on family planning and reproductive health based on their manifesto commitments.

The parties’ performance was assessed at federal and provincial levels, based on the overall public stance of population planning, the procurement of contraceptives, legislation, the issuance of notifications, policy on engaging ulema, and concrete action taken towards the implementation of the policy and the CCI’s recommendations.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, PTI made favourable media statements on population management, engaged ulema and made considerable progress on increasing the provincial budget for family planning and legislation on reproductive healthcare.

In Sindh, the PPP made significant progress on ensuring universal access to family planning, increasing provincial budgets for family planning, family planning legislation in the parliament and family planning awareness campaigns.

In Punjab, PTI’s progress measured well in the areas of family planning service delivery, where the provincial government effectively utilised family planning budgets, conducted mass advocacy and awareness campaigns and engagedulema on population.

The Balochistan government managed to garner support from religious scholars on birth spacing and also reported improved access to affordable contraceptives and an increase in the family planning budget.

PML-N MNA Dr Aisha Ghaus Pasha said greater investment in population welfare is important for Pakistan’s economic prosperity.

PTI Senator Mehr Taj Roghani stressed on the importance of taking reproductive health experts and religious scholars on board to create more social acceptability of family planning in communities.

Citing Pakistan’s high population growth rate, Population Council Country Director Dr Zeba Sathar said 4m unwanted pregnancies can be avoided annually if Pakistan achieves universal access to family planning services as prescribed by the CCI’s recommendations.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2020