Pakistan

We work with the government of Pakistan’s Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces, as well as private providers, to help engage men and women in their reproductive health decisions and provide high-quality health care for all.

MCHIP

MOMENTUM works across Pakistan’s Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces to increase access to high-quality health care and make reproductive health care, information, and services more accessible and acceptable for men, women, and young people. We collaborate with the governments of both provinces and with private providers to engage men and others who influence family planning decisions, such as mothers-in-law, to help increase the use of voluntary family planning.

Reaching Women with High-Quality Postpartum Family Planning

In Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, maternal deaths account for 16 percent of deaths among women of reproductive age.1 Family planning, especially postpartum family planning, can help women plan and space their births for optimal health outcomes, reducing their number of births and, therefore, the number of times they’re at risk of dying due to complications during pregnancy or childbirth. MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership is investigating how women in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa access and use postpartum family planning to plan and space their pregnancies effectively. We are working with the province’s Department of Health and Population Welfare to better integrate its activities across multiple health system levels. We are also assisting Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to better integrate postpartum family planning into maternal and newborn health care in private and public settings, including providing mentorship and supportive supervision for service providers and health facilities across the province.

MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership partners with health facilities in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to help them better serve communities with high-quality health care. Using a gender- and disability-inclusive checklist tool, we help facilities improve postpartum family planning counseling and services, make health supplies and equipment for postpartum family planning and infection prevention more available, and improve infection prevention and control practices. MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership will lead a technical working group to strengthen the quality of health care that district and facility health workers provide, with a particular focus on improving care for adolescent girls, young women, people with disabilities, and those who face higher risks of unsafe pregnancies.

Learn more about our Behaviorally Focused Policy Landscape Analysis tool, which we are using to better understand postpartum family planning in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

MCSP

Helping Private Providers Deliver Client-Centered Reproductive Health Care

Approximately 54 percent of family planning users in Sindh obtain their contraceptive method through the private sector. While men often accompany their partners to medical appointments and influence family planning decisions, information and counseling usually targets women. Men often have limited knowledge and low trust in family planning methods.2 MOMENTUM Private Healthcare Delivery partners with private sector clinics in Sindh to provide gender-inclusive health care by training providers to offer non-judgmental family planning services to men, women, and young people that allow them to use their method of choice.

Learn four principles MOMENTUM uses to engage the private sector in health care.

Srosh Anwar/MCHIP

Making Reproductive Health Care More Accessible and Inclusive

In Pakistan’s Sindh province, MOMENTUM Private Healthcare Delivery implements gender-transformative approaches to help men, women, and young people make family planning and reproductive health decisions. The project creates communications and digital strategies —such as a chatbot focused on engaging men as supportive partners for family planning—that will bring reproductive health information, options, and resources closer to those who want it.

MOMENTUM Private Healthcare Delivery also works with young men and couples early in their family planning decisions. We host family planning sessions at academic institutions and customize materials and resources to help them better understand their family planning options.

MOMENTUM Country and Global Leadership uses the Social Norms Exploration Tool from the Institute for Reproductive Health at Georgetown University to help identify communication, decision-making, and empowerment opportunities that allow young couples to better plan and space pregnancies.

Learn more about how MOMENTUM integrates gender into our projects.

Derek Brown/USAID

Interested in partnering with us or learning more about our work in Pakistan? Contact us here or check out our regional reference brief.

Learn more about USAID’s work in Pakistan.

References

  1. National Institute of Population Studies (NIPS) [Pakistan] and ICF. 2020. Pakistan Maternal Mortality Survey 2019: Key Indicators Report. Islamabad, Pakistan, and Rockville, Maryland, USA: NIPS and ICF. https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/PR128/PR128.pdf.
  2. Population Welfare Department, Government of Sindh. Costed Implementation Plan on Family Planning for Sindh (2015–2020). December 2015. https://fp2030.org/sites/default/files/CIP-Sindh-03-15-16-final-1_0.pdf.

Last updated September 2022.

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