Govt lacks system for population control plans

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan is facing serious issue of having no institutional mechanism for effective implementation of population control programmes while the government is vying to arrange $4.5 million from foreign donors, it is learnt reliably.
Having $1.5 million assistance from UNFPA, Ministry of Population Welfare is making effort to bridge the gap of $4.5m for social marketing of Greenstar to meet its annual requirement of around $6m, sources informed TheNation.
According to institutional capacity building of population welfare programme, there is a shortage of skilled persons, as mostly skilled and experienced persons have been retired. It also faces difficulties for effective implementation of strategies set out in the population policy for achieving its goal towards population stabilisation.
The documents available revealed that there was glaring need of capacity building of the programme employees, particularly in the area of population studies, demography, research, behavioural change communication, family planning and contraceptive logistics.
It further said that in view of limited government expenditures for foreign training, the Ministry of Population Welfare desired that JICA might consider providing support for capacity building of population programme manager. While, Pakistan’s population is expected to increase by almost 100 million in the next 25 years, the consequences of such explosive population growth may be devastating and a strain on social services such as health and education.
It is pertinent to note here that Pakistan’s contraceptive prevalence rate is one of the lowest in the region at 30 percent and modern method use has stagnated in the last 8 years at 22 percent.
It is also learnt that Ministry of Population Development is contemplating to involve graduates of local Madaris (Religious schools) in its public sensitisation schemes regarding population control. The ministry has already engaged 22,800 Ulema and Imams of various mosques in its scheme of public counselling vis-a-vis family planning.
When contacted, Secretary Ministry of Population Welfare Nayyer Agha said the ministry was trying to hit rural areas to introduce different effective programmes. He hailed the support of Greenstar for effectively running the programme. To a question about Ulema’s role in population control programme, he termed it an important and effective step.