KARACHI: Over 1.3 million pregnant and lactating needy women will benefit in the next five years from the Mother and Child Support Programme (MCSP), it emerged on Monday.

Official sources said that a meeting, held to review the progress of the Strengthening Social Protection Delivery System in Sindh (SSPDS) with Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah in chair, was told that the MCSP had been introduced to encourage pregnant women and mothers of under two-year-old children to utilise maternal, new-born, and child healthcare services (MNCH) throughout the continuum of care for 1,000 days/ three years from conception.

The programme will also provide conditional cash transfers to support and strengthen the scale of the MCSP.

The chief minister was told that an amount of Rs285. 656m had been released for cash transfer and of them, Rs163.584m had been transferred and the remaining was being transferred.

The chief minister instructed the social protection department to issue CNICs to those mothers who did not have them so that they could take advantage of the project.

The meeting was attended among others by Principal Secretary to CM Agha Wasif, Social Protection Secretary Rafiq Mustafa Shaikh and Social Protection Authority Chief Executive Officer Samiullah Shaikh.

The meeting was told that MCSP had a budget of $201.85m to strengthen and expand the existing programme by providing conditional cash transfers to pregnant women and mothers of children under two years old.

It was informed that the SSPDS had been launched with the International Development Association (IDA).

The IDA has funded $200m and counterpart funding of the provincial government share is $30m, which shows that the project cost is $230m. The project will be implemented over five years (2023-2027).

Social protection secretary told the meeting that the MCSP, which had been piloted in districts Umerkot and Tharparkar in 2021, offered cost-effective instruments for increasing the uptake of these essential services by poor rural households.

He said that the beneficiaries of the MCSP would avail WHO-recommended MNCH services throughout the continuum of care for 1,000 days from conception and are considered essential for the well-being of the mother, new-born and child.

The SPA CEO told the CM that a total of 16 touchpoints had been identified throughout the 1,000 days. Those included antenatal, safe deliveries, postnatal maternal and new-born check-ups, and child growth and immunisation monitoring.

He said that the 15 poorest districts – Umerkot, Tharparkar, Mirpurkhas, Tando Mohammad Khan, Matiari, Tando Allahyar, Sujawal, Thatta, Badin, Sanghar, Kahsmore, Jacobabad, Shikarpur and Kambar-Shahdadkot – were selected based on the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) to roll out the program.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2024