1st Meeting of TA & AG held at HSA

A high-level working group of public health specialists was formed and named as “Technical Advisory & Accountability Group” (TA&AG). The major area of work of TA&AG is Maternal Newborn Child Health (MNCH) and it will focus on four thematic areas namely Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality (EPMM), Every Newborn Action Plan (ENAP), State of the World’s Midwifery (SoWMy21), and lastly the Family Planning (FP). The first meeting of the TA&AG has been held at Health Services Academy (HSA), Govt. of Pakistan on 1st June 2022 which witnessed participation of 40 high-profile public health specialists including the Chair Prof. Dr. Shahzad Ali Khan, Vice Chancellor (VC) HSA; Dr. Palitha Mahipala, WHO Representative in Pakistan; Dr. Sabina Durrani, DG Population, MoNHSR&C; Prof. Dr. Farid Midhet, Head of MNCH at HSA; Dr. Amanullah Khan, CEO of Forum for Safe Motherhood (FSM) and provincial and federal office bearers of population welfare departments. The meeting was opened by VC, HSA followed by the introduction of the members and subsequently the detailed discussion on current scenario of the MNCH and FP interventions at national level and the way forward for a synergistic effort to improve the numbers. The members discussed various facets of the on-going interventions especially the Country Engagement Working Group’s working on FP. The members who attended this meeting online, also presented their opinion and input to improve the FP landscape. It is pertinent to mention that Dr. Mahipala of WHO despite of leave, attended the meeting from Srilanka and gave a structured view of WHO’s efforts in FP and he stressed to bring together the expertise for this national cause. In the end, the members agreed to review the TORs, seek more nominations from provinces especially the District Health Offices (DHOs) of those areas where performance of Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR) is poor. The revised composition, minutes of the meeting, TORs and agenda of the next meeting will be notified within 2-weeks’ time. In the end, Dr. Amanullah Khan of FSM thanked all the members and pledged to work together for improving this segment of public health.