Punjab Minister for Population Welfare Colonel (r) Hashim Dogar has stressed that the Population Welfare Department lays great emphasis on providing quality family planning services through its service delivery network and is striving hard to make reproductive health and family planning services available to every household in Punjab.
He especially mentioned the support by the Chief Minister Punjab Sardar Usman Buzdar Khan and the allocation of maximum financial resources to realize the dream of the population planning, in true letter and spirit in the province of the Punjab. He was speaking at the launch ceremony of the innovative model for improving access to family planning services for marginalized women. The pilot intervention is an innovative model to extend access to family planning service to the BISP beneficiaries and is being jointly implemented by BISP, the Population Council and Punjab Population Innovation Fund (PPIF) in Rahim Yar Khan district. Speaking at the occasion, Dr. Ijaz Nabi, Chairman, Punjab Population Innovation Fund (PPIF) said that the Government of Punjab has established PPIF as a technical hub to pilot innovative, scalable and sustainable family planning interventions such as this initiative in district Rahim Yar Khan. PPIF with independent board of directors and a flexible programmatic and organizational structure specializes in designing and piloting interventions that can supplement public sector programming for improving family planning information and services.
Jawad Ahmed Qureshi, CEO, Punjab Population Innovation Fund (PPIF) said the pilot model will facilitate low-income married women of reproductive age in district Rahim Yar Khan through a voucher scheme to avail free family planning services. Transportation cost will also be reimbursed to these women, thereby eliminating the financial barriers for poor women in uptake of family planning services. He hoped that the successful implementation of this pilot would pave the way for scaling up this model throughout Punjab.
