Islamabad, April 8, 2022: 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 key priority in preparedness and response to emergencies, to which Pakistan is prone.

During her visit, she met with representatives of UN agencies and reiterated UNFPA’s commitment to further build on strengths and expertise within the UN system through joint initiatives to best serve the women and girls affected by humanitarian crises, especially in Afghan refugee and hosting communities.

She also met with humanitarian partners including National Disaster Management Authority, Provincial Disaster Management Authorities, Sarhad and Balochistan Rural Support Programmes, Health Services Academy among others to discuss UNFPA’s existing humanitarian interventions and to look into up-scaling the support according to the emerging needs.

Meeting some staff members and humanitarian workers in Islamabad

As part of her mission, she paid a visit to KP province to view the work on ground and visited UNFPA-supported government health facility in Peshawar and met with women and girls from Afghan refugee and hosting communities as well 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 as well as 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 women and girls are safe and able to access reproductive health and protection services even during humanitarian situations.”  Said Ms. Arakaki.

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For more information

Ms. Mariyam Nawaz, Communications Analyst, UNFPA Pakistan | mnawaz@unfpa.org