Message from the WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean

Launched in the early 1950s, the joint technical collaboration between Pakistan and the World Health Organization (WHO) has substantially matured during the ensuing decades into a vibrant partnership exclusively focused on improving the health status of the country’s population. Pakistan has consistently endorsed the primary health care (PHC) principles and developed an elaborate health system infrastructure. The country has also established a large number of health training institutions in the medical, dental, pharmacy, nursing and midwifery fields and a range of allied health sciences, including postgraduate degree-awarding institutions and health professionals’ regulating bodies of international repute. Despite these rich assets, the country is progressing slowly towards achieving its health Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The predominant challenges range from an overwhelmed health system that finds it difficult to generate the required support for the implementation of key PHC interventions to a rapid population growth that decelerates the reproductive health parameters. The enduring inequities affecting the rural and peri-urban underprivileged populations is another major contributing factor restricting their access to essential health services.

WHO has been working with the Government of Pakistan on a wide range of strategic health policies, operational strategies, programmatic interventions, and on establishing normative standards to guide the nation towards the attainment of health MDGs. Pakistan has mobilized its inherent institutional and human resources capacities and endorsed a service delivery approach pursued in the framework of PHC. This commitment has been reiterated in the current National Health Policy which affirms its solemn pledge to universal coverage and access to essential PHC services by incorporating an Essential Health Services Package as well as by the creation of a robust workforce and skills mix at the peripheral levels.

The focus on: maternal, neonatal and child health care, including reproductive health and family planning; control of key communicable diseases; universal access to vaccination, with poliomyelitis eradication as a high priority; ongoing health system strengthening efforts; design of social protection mechanisms; building institutional capacities for health emergency preparedness and response; and establishing a nexus between health and its social determinants are vital elements for translating the established policy into actual practice.

WHO has also remained in the forefront of the United Nations initiative to ‘Deliver as One’, which has been piloted in Pakistan over the past few years. This initiative presents an opportunity for enhanced partnerships for health development and increased aid-effectiveness for this resource-constrained sector.

Against this backdrop, the publication of this EMHJ supplement dedicated to Pakistan’s key health areas is a remarkable achievement, which will document and provide impetus and focus to the Government of Pakistan’s efforts to attain better health outcomes. The twenty evidence-based papers included in this supplement on important policy and programmatic areas, prepared in association with senior national health managers, will provide policy-makers with key support to spearhead diverse interventions in this sector, which is so critical to building the nation. Furthermore, coinciding with the golden jubilee of the establishment of the WHO permanent office in Pakistan in 1960, this publication constitutes a significant milestone in an unwavering and mutually beneficial partnership.

Many of these articles reflect valuable lessons from the disasters that have hit Pakistan in the recent past. Unfortunately, while this special issue was being finalized, Pakistan was confronted with another unprecedented major disaster, where much of the country was submerged in the monsoon floods. Although deeply saddened and grieved over the massive loss of life, national assets and property we strongly believe that the lessons learnt and capacities developed over the years will assist the nation, WHO and the humanitarian partners to respond effectively to this grave national emergency.

Hussein A. Gezairy, M.D., F.R.C.S.

Regional Director