Not is the fertility rate extremely high given the resources of the country; research has also shown that there is a huge gap between the demand and supply of services which needs to be addressed, in the most cost effective manner. The Chief Minister Punjab has established this fund to complement the efforts of Government agencies by harvesting promising ideas. we are also actively reaching out  to key international players to learn from and apply successful strategies in Punjab.

Mr. Jawad Ahmad Qureshi, CEO PPIF, introduced the fund as a significant mile stone for the Government of the Punjab towards achieving its international commitments for population development. Research shows the inaccessibility of modern methods and associated fear of side effects that has led to high unmet need in the province, Which is precisely what the fund aims to address. The PPIF innovation roadmap is a Seven-step process to deliver innovative and scale able FP solutions.

Dr. Zeba Sathar, reflected on the idea behind setting up of the fund and elaborated on its Theory of Change. She highlighted the demand and supply side barriers in light of the Landscape Analysis Study conducted by Population Council. She also facilitated the group discussion on Service Delivery and shared the
following recommendations:
• Engage male health providers for couple counseling.
• Incentivize private providers through capacity building on
quality of care and voucher schemes.
• Increase availability of FP counseling services at pharmacies
while maintaining privacy and confidentiality of clients.
• Provide youth/adolescent friendly services (e.g. 24hr helpline)
• Explore collaborations with organizations (such as Uber and Careem) to increase outreach of services.

Dr. Ali Cheema, Director CERP, BOD PPIF highlighted the role of PPIF in light of recently disclosed Provisional Population Census 2017, which shows an alarming state of the Punjab Population to be 110 Million, While Lahore alone contributing to almost 12 Million. While sharing his views on the recommendations presented, he reiterated the need for behavior change approaches, private sector engagement and improving pricing of contraception through interventions like voucher schemes. He further explained the gaps in demand and supply interventions and suggested perspective partners to explore solutions to address the mismatch between them. Dr. Ali Cheema particularly emphasized to explore the challenges in scalling up small scale successful interventions with due attention to cost effectiveness.

At the end of the session, Mr. Makhdoom Hashim Bakht, PPIF Board Member, appreciated the interventions being awarded by the PPIF in its first cycle and encouraged the sector to avail this opportunity to test and scale up promising and dynamic solutions.

In her closing remarks, Dr. Shabana Haider, Member P&D Board, congratulated the PPIF team for the successful roll-out of the first cycle. She shared that the company has been incubated by Planning and Development Department and appreciated the valuable recommendations shared by the facilitators and other participants.