The experts at a meeting held in connection with World Population Day underscore Integrated Approach for Family Planning.
Karachi
UNFPA representative, Ms. Renuka Swami cautioned on Thursday that with the world population reaching 8 billion, it underscores the need for moving from number towards making informed choices, and suggested to engaging young people in the discourse of family planning.
She said this speaking at FP (Family Planning) 2030 meeting, held in commemoration of World Population Day.
Participants of the meeting highlighted the impact of high population growth rate on its socio-economic development and emphasized its linkages with rising poverty and disparity, to climate change, high urbanization and urban migration, all restraining investment in human development and improving lives of people. Pakistan has made its FP2030 Commitments in line with its national goals agreed under the CCI Recommendations and the targets set for the National Action Plan.
Country Director Jhpiego, Dr. Fauzia Assad said that an integrated multisectoral approach is imperative for expansion of family planning choices by scaling up self-injection contraceptives. She added that we need to continue to innovate by inclusion of concepts such a self-care in Family Planning and in particular focus upon engaging men in the ongoing discourse of Family Planning.
Speaking at the event, Country Advisor Gates Foundation, Dr. Yasmin Qazi shared the historical perspective on family planning in Pakistan and stressed that we need to work collaboratively to address the gaps and fulfill the unmet needs of couples who want access to family planning support. For this we need to ensure steady supply of contraceptive commodities supplemented by behavior change engagement and counselling.
President Szabist University, Ms. Shehnaz Wazir Ali remarked that joint planning is critical for creating cohesion amongst FP2030 partners and assured galvanizing academia support for partners. Ms. Wazir also appreciated CIP for being acknowledged as global best practice model out of 43 countries.
Dr. Mohiuddin, RIZ consulting said that one of the core indicators under FP2030 is increasing the modern contraceptive prevalence rate (mCPR) and for that it is imperative to scale-up new modern contraceptive such as self-injectable Sayanna Press.
Program Officer FP BMG, Linnea Eitmann informed the participants regarding Gates foundation three core components i.e. expanding method choice, developing new and improved contraceptive methods and lastly increasing access to each method.
Technical Advisor and Focal Person FP 2030, Dr. Talib Lashari highlighted key reforms made under the FP2030 working group such as functional integration between Department of Health and Population Welfare Department. He added that significant progress has been observed in the areas of staff capacity building, youth engagement, legislative reforms and Life skills-based Education. Dr. Lashari also shared the implementation progress of self-injectable DMPA-SC (Sayana Press) in Sindh and noted that CIP is moving to initiate self-injection by clients.
The meeting concluded with the FP2030 partners reaffirming their support for the unified goal for working collaboratively for balanced population management and resultantly as stronger prosperous Pakistan. (PR)
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