Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah announced that the Sindh government has disbursed Rs163.584 million through the Social Protection Delivery System to pregnant and lactating women. This initiative, known as the mother and Child Support Programme (MCSP), aims to provide financial assistance to encourage women during pregnancy and for up to two years post-birth.
The program, spanning 1,000 days or three years from conception, offers conditional cash transfers to enhance maternal, newborn, and child healthcare services. Fifteen of the poorest districts have been selected to benefit from this support, emphasizing the government’s commitment to maternal and child welfare. This emerged in a meeting he presided over to review the progress of ‘the Strengthening Social Protection Delivery System in Sindh (SSPDS)’ here at CM House on Monday. The meeting was attended by PSCM Agha Wasif, Secretary of Social Protection Dept Rafiq Mustafa Shaikh, CEO of Social Protection Authority Samiullah Shaikh and others concerned.
The MCSP program has a budget of $201.85 million to strengthen and expand the existing Mother and Child Support Program by providing conditional cash transfers to pregnant women and mothers of children under two years old. The Strengthening Social Protection Delivery System in Sindh (SSPDS) has been launched with the International Development Association (IDA). The IDA has funded $200 million and counterpart funding of the Sindh government share is $30 million which shows the project cost is $230 million.
The project will be implemented over five years (2023-2027). Mother & Child Support: The Mother and Child Support Programme (MCSP) has been initiated for $201.85 million to strengthen and increase the scale of the Mother and Child Support via conditional cash transfer to pregnant women and mothers of under two-year-old children encouraging them to utilize maternal, newborn and child healthcare (MNCH) services throughout the continuum of care for 1,000 days (3 years) from conception. Secretary Social Protection Rafiq Mustafa to the CM that the MCSP which has been piloted in two districts (Umerkot and Tharparkar) in 2021, offer cost-effective instruments for increasing the uptake of these essential services by poor rural households.
He said that it was also an effective way to target small cash transfers to poor women at times in the life cycle (when they are pregnant or have young children) for when they most need additional support to look after their health and the nutrition of their children. The MCSP encapsulates some significant advances in this area, including partnership between social protection and health service providers, coordination among stakeholders at the local level, initial development of IMIS, beneficiary registration and verification, and online payment mechanisms.
The beneficiaries of the MCSP will avail of WHO-recommended MNCH services throughout the continuum of care for 1,000 days from conception and are considered essential for the well-being of the mother, newborn, and child. CEO Social Protection Authority Samiullah Shaikh said that a total of 16 touchpoints have been identified throughout the 1,000 days. These include antenatal, safe deliveries, postnatal maternal and newborn checkups, and child growth and immunization monitoring. The 15 poorest districts – Umerkot, Tharparkar, Mirpurkhas, Tando Mohammad Khan, Matiari, Tando Allahyar, Sujawal, Thatta, Badin, Sanghar, Kahsmore, Jacobabad, Shikarpur and Kambar-Shahdadkot – selected based on the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) to roll out the program.
