KARACHI: Ms. Shoko Arakaki, Director of UNFPA’s Humanitarian Office in Geneva, visited Pakistan to renew UNFPA’s support and commitment to ensure that reproductive health, rights and protection of women and girls from gender-based violence is a critical priority in preparedness and response to emergencies, which Pakistan is prone.
During her visit, she met with representatives of UN agencies. She reiterated UNFPA’s commitment to further build on strengths and expertise within the UN system through joint initiatives to serve best the women and girls affected by humanitarian crises, especially Afghan refugees and host communities.
She also met with humanitarian partners, including National Disaster Management Authority, Provincial Disaster Management Authorities, Sarhad and Balochistan Rural Support Programmes, and Health Services Academy, to discuss UNFPA’s existing humanitarian interventions and to look into up-scaling the support according to the emerging needs.
As part of her mission, she paid a visit to KP province to view the work on the ground and visited a UNFPA-supported government health facility in Peshawar and met with women and girls from Afghan refugee and host communities as midwives, psychologists and social mobilizers working in the facility.
UNFPA has supported eight health facilities through equipment, medicines, and health workforce to ensure that life-saving obstetric and newborn care and counselling and referrals for survivors of gender-based violence continue to function in remote communities.
“Pakistan is a diverse country, replete with natural resources, however prone to humanitarian crises and high on the climate risk index at the same time. Therefore, the need for solid preparedness and resilience cannot be overstated. It was heartening to see the remarkable joint work done by humanitarian partners in Pakistan. UNFPA is a partner of the Government and people in Pakistan in building a resilient country where females are safe and able to access reproductive health and protection services even during humanitarian situations.” Said Ms Arakaki.