Save the Children, with financial and technical support from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) held a Stakeholder Gathering to showcase insights for strengthening SRHR resilience in Punjab. Previously, consultations were held to validate the inputs/ insights on the Institutional Resilience Building Strategic Framework developed by UNFPA in 2022.
UNFPA and Save the Children held this gathering as part of efforts to prioritize actions that contribute to adaptive resilience of the health systems that has the ability to sense early, calibrate and respond to shocks and provides responsive services as and when needed, but still continues to effectively provide a set of basic critical services (including SRH/GBV/FP) in order to sustain the gains as well as to avoid and mitigate the damage caused by humanitarian emergency such as Floods 2022.
The gathering witnessed active participation of key stakeholders, including representatives from key government departments, such as Primary and Secondary Health Department, Directorate General of Health Services, Punjab Women Protection Authority, IRMNCH, Population Welfare Department, Social Welfare Department, Rescue 1122, Punjab Police and representatives from NGOs, INGOs, and UN agencies. The discussions were guided by the overarching goal to drive impactful actions to enhance resilience in the province and highlight the strength of partnerships and collective efforts in enhancing resilience and reproductive health in Punjab.
Addressing the audience, Chief Guest of the event, Prof. Dr. Jamal Nasir, Health Minister Punjab stressed on the importance of Punjab Government’s Strategic Policy Reforms in the health sector and family planning systems towards ensuring mother-child health and nutrition. He also stressed on the continuous monitoring and sustainability of the successful health initiatives.
Director of Program Quality Evidence and Impact (PQEI), Save the Children, Muhammad Naeem, stated, ” This session serves as a testament to the power of a united front for strengthening the health system of Pakistan, ensuring access and availability to Maternal Newborn and Reproductive Health (MNRH), which is one of the key focus of Save the Children Health and Nutrition programmes. I extend my heartfelt gratitude to UNFPA for their invaluable partnership and IRMNCH, Primary and Secondary Health Department, Punjab for their commitment to the cause. He appreciated the Government of Punjab for leading strategic policy reform in the sector of health.
Punjab Focal Lead/Provincial Programme Officer Gender/GBV UNFPA, Tania Durrani shared in her remarks that building climate resilience and adaptive capacity has become more urgent. She focused on building knowledge, awareness and capacity for the links between climate-related emergencies and health,especially SRH, maternal health, family planning, mental health and psychosocial support, GBV, child marriage and other harmful practices. She spoke about integrating a resilience strategy into both health and disaster response frameworks, prioritizing Minimum Initial Service Package (MISP). She mentioned the recently established Resilience Reference Group, advocacy and awareness raising activities and the development of a Comprehensive Costed Implementation Plan (CIP) can collectively contribute to strengthening SRH resilience, by fostering collaboration, strategic planning, effective resource allocation, systematic implementation, policy influence and community engagement.
The gathering featured an experience sharing session where President Team Dreams and CEO WheelChairwala, Naureel Abbas shared his experiences as representative of Persons with Disabilities. During his remarks, he appreciated Save the Children and UNFPA’s commitment to supporting initiatives that positively impact vulnerable populations and lauded them for including persons with disabilities as their strategic partners in resilience building. He shared the struggles persons with disabilities have to face during disasters and emergencies situations and how they can be facilitated. He further highlighted the effective role that local disability champions can play in such situations.
Findings of the consultations and inception meetings were shared with the audience. The Stakeholder Gathering encompassed a comprehensive exploration of key issues, experiences, solutions and collaborative strategies, laying the groundwork for a more resilient and thriving Punjab. Save the Children and UNFPA expressed gratitude to all participants for their commitment and contributions to this crucial initiative.
UNFPA has been investing resources to bolstering health systems capable of anticipating and addressing emergencies while simultaneously adjusting to deliver a streamlined set of crucial healthcare services. Save the children towards enhancing national and sub-national capacities in resilience programming, emergency preparedness, and response to ensure the availability of life-saving interventions during humanitarian situations.
