The offices of the Ministry of Population Welfare will be shifted to the secretariat after construction of the 'population house' saving Rs 3 million monthly rent paid by the government. This was stated by the Population Division Secretary Shahzada Shaikh during a meeting with the CDA officials in which the site, structure, building, and material policy were finalised.
The National Health and Population Welfare Facility (NHF) is Rs 60 million four-year funded project. The prime aim of this project is to improve the health of poor people in Pakistan, ministry officials said.
Technical Assistance is provided under the Medium Term Budgetary Framework (MTBF) to help Pakistan achieve Poverty Reduction Strategy Plan (PRSP) objectives of social sector, they said.
Technical assistance is being used to support the Ministry of Population Welfare and Health for achieving the prime objectives development strategy in health and population sectors, including the establishment of a population policy review unit, ministry official maintained.
It is also aimed at strengthening capacity for effective programme implementation, develop managerial, organisational and system capacity, support provincial and district authorities through the federal programmes and help stakeholders access relevant knowledge and experience.
Technical assistance is being provided to Ministry of Population and Health through Technical Assistance Management Agency (TAMA). Ministry and the USAID has joined hands for providing technical assistance at federal, provincial, and district level, the ministry officials said.
Ministry of Population has already forwarded the federal level requirement of technical assistance and is being processed by TAMA, officials informed.
Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) project is initiated at a cost of Rs 2586 million including foreign assistance of Rs 135 million to be met through Asian Development Bank (ADB) loan, they said.
They said that in pursuance of devolution of power policy Ministry of Population has devolved its welfare programme, and fiscal powers were being given to provinces.
Ministry officials said that 'Catalyst Consortium' (USAID Contacting Agency) has launched a project titled ' OBSI' in ten district of four provinces for a period of 18 months, four districts - Rawalpindi, Jhelum, Khanewal, Dera Ghazi Khan in Punjab; two in Sindh Dadu and Sukkur; two in NWFP Buner and Dir and two in Balochistan Lasbela and Jafferabad.