PESHAWAR, Dec 5: The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has pledged $30 million to improve mother and neo-natal health-care scenario in Pakistan in the next two years.

“Of this amount, $15 million would be spent on the improvement and upgradation of health facilities in the Frontier over the period of next two to three years,” said US Ambassador Ryan C Crocker while speaking at a ceremony held to award sub-grants to NGOs at the provincial health services academy here on Tuesday evening.

“The USAID has been working with the provincial governments to minimise the maternal mortality rate (MMR) and neo-natal mortality rate (NMR) in the country,” he said. He added that 100 girls had been selected from the two target districts which were being enrolled in midwifery school. The US envoy to Pakistan said that healthcare centres in the far-flung districts would be equipped with basic necessities to enable them to provide post- and pre-natal care.

Dr Nobel Ali, chief of PAIMAN, said the USAID had allocated $50 million for the project which would be completed over a period of five years. It aims at strengthening the existing health-care facilities in the selected districts besides filling up vacant posts, she added.

She said that about 80 per cent of births in Pakistan were supervised by unskilled birth attendants, due to which 50 per cent of the newborns died before attaining the age of one month.