PESHAWAR, Feb 27: Pakistan has lower health indicators than many developing countries, trainee officers of the National Institute of Public Administration were informed on Friday.

Dr Fayyaz Ali of the reproductive health department, speaking to the trainee officers on 'child health development', said the government had allocated financial resources for several important health programmes.

He said physical and social protection of children was imperative for their development. "Physical, cognitive, emotional and social abilities depend upon the early development in childhood," he said and added that it was a core sustainable development and social evolution issue.

He said high fertility level and decline in mortality had resulted ina rise in population growth rate of more than three per cent per annum. He said there were 55 million children under 15 years of age and 19.1 million below the age of five years in the country.

More than 45 per cent or 28.5 million women were estimated to be in the reproductive age of 15-49 years. He said maternal health, antenatal care, delivery, postnatal care, breast feeding, supplementary feeding, nutritional supplementation for pregnant women and children, micro-nutritient supplementation and fortification were of paramount importance for the health of children.

He said good parenting practices, gender equality, caring skills, early childhood education and cognitive, social and language skills were other areas the parents should focus on.