new report <\/a>warns that “Pakistan’s health system faces functional collapse in critical programmes as Official Development Assistance (ODA) withdraws \u2014 a crisis that cannot be solved by budget increases alone.”<\/p>\nThe report, titled: “Beyond Dependence: Understanding the Impact of ODA Cuts on Pakistan\u2019s Health System”, was published last week and authored by the think tank\u2019s Shahab Siddiqi, Behzad Taimur and Syeda Farwa Qamar Jaffri.<\/p>\n
The press release said it\u00a0documented\u00a0how recent donor reductions were disrupting specific system functions that domestic budgets only partially covered: commodity procurement, diagnostic capacity, supply chain management, and specialist staffing.<\/p>\n
It added that the report drew\u00a0on interviews with dozens of development practitioners and public health officials across federal and provincial governments, alongside analysis of budget and ODA data.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“The evidence is already visible. USAID’s suspension closed over 60 facilities, disrupting care for 1.7 million people. A $27.2m\u00a0global fund reduction halved TB monitoring in Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, cut diagnostic kit financing\u00a0and placed treatment for tens of thousands of HIV-positive patients at risk. These disruptions will only intensify if the government does not develop effective transition plans as ODA continues to contract,” the press release said.<\/p>\n
“This is a functional problem, not just a fiscal one,” Siddiqi, Tabadlab\u2019s\u00a0director for human capital, was quoted as saying.<\/p>\n
“Pakistan’s public budgets finance salaries and facilities. ODA finances vaccines, medicines, diagnostics, and supply chains. When ODA contracts, services retain staff but lose the operational core that makes programmes work,” he said.<\/p>\n
The press release said the pressure was further\u00a0compounded by Pakistan’s “chronically low health investment” at just 0.9% of GDP, “far below” the World Health Organisation’s recommended minimum of 5%.<\/p>\n
“In Pakistan, grant-based assistance has contracted by 59% since 2017, while OECD projections indicate a further 5.9% decline in global ODA for 2026, signalling a structural shift rather than a temporary disruption.”<\/p>\n
The press release said the report proposed\u00a0a structured transition framework with immediate priorities that include the establishment\u00a0of a national health financing forum, developing a national ODA registry, and designing a risk matrix to classify functions by substitutability and criticality.<\/p>\n
“Medium-term actions focus on time-bound transition plans for TB, HIV-AIDS and immunisation programmes, regulatory reforms for flexible procurement and hiring, and raising public health spending towards 3% of GDP.<\/p>\n
“Long-term reforms centre on technical capacity enhancement and progressive integration of vertical programmes into primary care,” the press release concluded.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Proposes structured transition framework with priority including establishing national health financing forum Patients line up for medical assistance at a health camp. Photo: Express Cuts in development assistance and funding pose a significant threat to the country’s health sector and its functioning, according to a report by think tank Tabadlab. In a press release issued […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.tribune.com.pk\/media\/images\/untitled-design-101756188923-0\/untitled-design-101756188923-0-640x480.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108301","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-updates-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}