Peshawar - The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Special Secretary for Health Ataur-Rehman has urged his department and stakeholders to build a resilient and sustainable health system in the province and has expressed a desire that all interventions be designed along these lines, particularly for the control and elimination of HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria.
He hoped that by working together, all department and programme heads would interact more frequently and develop coordination with other social sectors and social safety nets to improve communicable disease control and pandemic preparedness in the province.
He was speaking today in Peshawar at a provincial workshop organised by the World Health Organization (WHO) and Solutions for Sustainable Development Initiatives Pvt. Ltd. (SSDI) to facilitate the development of the Resilient and Sustainable System for Health (RSSH) component of Pakistan’s Global Fund funding request. The workshop is part of Pakistan’s application for the 2023-2025 funding cycle, which is due soon.
While thanking The Global Fund for its grants for disease control, DG Health Dr Shaukat Ali stated that every effort would be made to make the programmes more self-sufficient and run along horizontal lines to bring about a tangible improvement in service delivery, particularly at the community level, through capacity building of the lady health workers.
Earlier, Dr Riaz Solangi, Executive Director of SSDI, outlined the workshop’s objectives and briefed participants on the various aspects of the Global Fund funding request for the 2023-25 funding cycle, particularly in the context of the RSSH component, and to identify the issues, gaps, and challenges related to each of the RSSH areas, as well as to suggest recommended actions to consolidate and incorporate into the funding request.
He explained that this was part of a highly inclusive and participatory approach that ensured the prioritisation of high-quality interventions that were well aligned with the National Health Vision 2016-25 and National and Provincial HIV, TB, and Malaria strategic plans, as well as country priorities.
