Supporting Women and Girls in Pakistan: Scaling up Empowerment and Care Strategies to Address Health and Survival

Pakistan's continued high maternal, neonatal, and child mortality is affecting the overall development and national growth. The estimated national maternal mortality ratio ranges from 250 - 750 per 100,000 live births per year, while neonatal mortality rate ranges from 43 - 66 per 1,000 live births per year across the provinces of Pakistan. The under-five mortality rate is 89 per 1,000 live births per year, and diarrhea and pneumonia are two of the most common causes of post-neonatal mortality. Together, they account for more than 30% of all under five deaths in Pakistan.

Majority of maternal, newborn and child deaths are preventable and treatable given programs are designed and delivered through an efficient public health system that takes into account the geographic and social structures. There are several factors resulting in slow progress and improvement of MNCH indicators. These include poor coverage, delayed scale up of effective interventions within the existing health system platforms, lack of women's and girls' empowerment, voice, and participation, and lack of community awareness and support regarding health conditions and poverty. Many of the risk factors that impact maternal and newborn health, such as nutritional deficiencies, exist from adolescence, and becoming pregnant during this sensitive life stage has been found to slow and stunt one's growth In order to evaluate the impact of the UeN initiative quasi experimental study design will be used. The intervention groups are broadly divided into two groups. Both groups will serve as control against each other due to nature of targeting of age group by each intervention group type. Group one included maternal and newborn health districts. These districts are further divided into three sub groups. Sub group 1 will receive only interventions focusing on maternal health (1 district (Sangher)); sub group 2 will receive interventions focusing only on newborn health (1 district (Nasirabad)); sub group 3 will receive combined maternal and newborn interventions (two districts (Lasbila and Badin). Group two will receive child health interventions focusing on the implementation of the global action plan for pneumonia and diarrhea (GAPPD [4districts, Qamabar Shahdadkot Muzaffargarh, Rahim Yar Khan Jafferabad). This design will help us to evaluate independent and combined effect of maternal, newborn, and child health interventions to address maternal, newborn and child health outcomes. We hypothesize that the roll out of proven and effective interventions within existing health delivery platforms for maternal, newborn, child and adolescent health will lead to significant reduction in perinatal mortality rate (20% compared to baseline) and at least 30% reduction in diarrhea and pneumonia case fatality rate in the target project districts.

UeN design justification: The conceptual framework for UeN postulates that increased engagement with communities, empowering women and girls, including addressing access barriers; 2) strengthening capacity of the public and private health sectors mainly through revision of curricula based on new evidence, developing management protocols for different cadre of health workers and providers on MNCH and training; private Sector engagement; 3) provision of sustained supplies and 4) District Health Information System (DHIS) data use for decision making will lead to greater responsiveness of public and private service providers to women's and girls' needs - particularly those of undeserved women, girls and children. The UeN initiative aims to create opportunities in governance processes through revival and participation in District Health Management team (DHMTs), service delivery and citizens' voice and empowerment to transform public and private health sector interactions to drive improvements in MNCH and survival