The UN population agency UNFPA in Bangladesh is going to be “more evidence- and rights-based” to adapt to changing development needs, the chief of health in its Dhaka office has said.
Published : 18 May 2016, 07:48 PM
“It will focus on specific populations with greater needs than the others,” Dr Sathya Doraiswamy told bdnews24.com on Wednesday in Copenhagen on the sidelines of the ‘Women Deliver’ conference.
The UNFPA works on women, girls and adolescents’ health and rights and family planning, the issues being discussed in the ongoing conference.
It also focuses on developing the midwifery profession, as unskilled birth attendants are a major cause of women’s death in Bangladesh during childbirth.
As it devises the next country programme for Bangladesh, its approach is expected to be slightly different this time.
“Our focus in the next five-year plan will be on the most marginalized, in line with the SDG agenda, which aims at leaving no one behind,” Doraiswamy said.
“We have to make sure those at risk are not being left behind. In Bangladesh, we’ll use the same approach to look at marginalised groups, whose needs are more than those of others.”
Use of data for policies
Bangladesh has made significant progress in cutting maternal deaths during the MDGs. But the UNFPA health chief said “innovative programming” would be needed to reduce it further to 70 per 100,000 live births from the current 170.
Actions needed to be targeted at the vulnerable having a high magnitude of problems, and specific data would be needed to do this, he said.
“National data sometimes fails to give a true picture of specific problems faced by such groups,” he said.
The UNFPA supports the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics in census operations and looks forward to working with the health ministry’s Health Economics Unit.
Dr Doraiswamy said they could help the unit prepare an annual report with specialised data to understand the specific challenges faced by women and girls in terms of access to services and “morbidity patterns”.
Global experts at the Women Deliver conference have also stressed on the generation of data to address problems.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation announced an $80-million funding to close the gender data gap to achieve gender equality, which is also an SDG goal.
Dr Doraiswamy lauded the announcement saying, “It’s a big global message”.
“There is global solidarity in terms of need for data,” he said, adding that the UNFPA had a “unique advantage” as a data development agency.
Earlier, the UNFPA used to help the health ministry buy family planning equipment and supplies.
But the chief of health said the government was now capable of handling this on its own. “So, we’ll provide technical support, policy advocacy, and capacity building support”.