Immunization program to be strengthened through NISP
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ISLAMABAD: (APP) The government has decided to strengthen immunization program through National Immunization Support Project (NISP).
The Federal EPI, Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations and Coordination on Monday signed National Immunization Support Project (NISP) with the World Bank to address the long standing issues of inefficiency and unsustainability in funds utilization caused by the fragmented financing structure of the programme in Pakistan.
Contrary to the fragmented approach of financing, NISP consolidates the multiple donors and GoP sources of funding in the form of Multi Donors Trust Fund (MDTF) for the co-financing.
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Dr. Syed Saqlain Ahmed Gilani, National Program Manager, Federal EPI said at the occasion of signing of the project agreement that under this programme Federal and Provincial programmes will make adequate and sustainable financing available through the national and provincial recurrent budgets for procurement of the vaccines and delivering immunization services respectively.
Provinces have given their consent for the pool procurement of vaccines by the Federal on behalf of the provinces”, Dr. Syed Saqlain Ahmed Gilani added.
The World Bank in coordination with development partners visited Pakistan from July 14-29 to conduct a Joint Supervision, Appraisal and Evaluation Mission (JSAEM) for implementation of the National Immunization Support Project (NISP) and to discuss the overall implementation status, institutional and financing arrangements for the project.
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The disbursement of funds will be done under two modes, one is through Disbursement linked Indicators mechanism (DLI) i-e Under DLI mechanism the funds would be disbursed to the provinces on achievement of desirable results after the verification by Federal EPI through third party.
Second mode of disbursement will be through technical assistance, under the Technical Assistance, Funds will be provided to Federal EPI in the designated account for provinces and federal both for the procurement of cold chain, goods and consultations while third party evaluation will be done for addressing the bottlenecks in both the provincial and federal programmes.
