International Development CommitteeFurther written evidence submitted by the Department for International Development

The programme will provide £160 million over four years (2013–17) to directly support the delivery of reproductive, maternal, new-born and child health and nutrition services in Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The programme will include technical assistance to the two provincial governments to effectively implement health sector plans; and stimulate demand amongst local communities.

This programme aims for 350,000 more babies to be delivered in hospitals, 420,000 more births to be attended by skilled birth attendants, 280,000 more children to be fully immunised and over one million children to be treated for diarrhoea and pneumonia.

DFID’s existing Maternal, New-born and Child Health programme helped train and deploy a cadre of 12,000 community midwives (CMWs) across the country, mainly in rural areas. The new programme will train a further 5,500 CMWs along with support to those already trained to help maximise their potential impact.

The programme will also improve nutrition services in Punjab and KP, preventing 500,000 children becoming under-nourished. This will be achieved by scaling up nutrition interventions through 62,000 Lady Health Workers in the two provinces and establishing centres to treat severely malnourished children. We are also looking at providing direct support to improve the diet of mothers and new-born children, including potentially in partnership with the World Food Programme, UNICEF and INGOs, through food fortification interventions. As part of this increased focus on nutrition, we have also encouraged the Government of Pakistan to join the UN’s Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) network to improve their ability to tackle the nutrition crisis.

I also accepted an offer from Pauline Latham for a DFID official to be put in touch with the Pakistani diaspora in Derby. I would be grateful if Pauline could be in touch.