Projects

Project Information

Women's Health Project

Country and Location

Pakistan in the provinces of Punjab, Sindh, North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Balochistan, and federal areas.

Borrower

Islamic Republic of Pakistan

Date of Approval

16 March 1999

Project Description

The Project will help the Government and the provinces to (i) expand basic women's health interventions to underserved populations including health and nutrition education, family planning, skilled delivery care, and control of common communicable diseases; (ii) develop woman friendly health systems providing quality women's health care from the community to first-referral level, through a district focus approach including contracting of nongovernment organizations (NGOs) for social mobilization and services; and (iii) strengthen the institutional and human resources capacity of the Ministry of Health and the provincial health departments to sustain women's health care development in the long term.

Total Cost

US$75 million equivalent comprising foreign exchange cost of US$26.4 million and local currency cost of US$48.6 million.

Bank Financing

US$47 million equivalent from the Bank's Special Funds resources.

Other Sources of Finance

OPEC Fund for International Development, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Government of Pakistan.

Executing/Procurement Agency

Ministry of Health at the federal level and the Provincial Health Departments of Punjab, Sindh, North-West Frontier Province, and Balochistan at the provincial level.

Procurement

All procurement financed by the Bank under the loan will be in accordance with the Bank's Guidelines for Procurement. Civil works contracts costing more than US$1 million will be by international competitive bidding. As most civil works contracts will be small in value, scattered, and unlikely to attract the interest of international contractors, they will be packaged and awarded on the basis of local competitive bidding in accordance with procedures acceptable to the Bank. Civil works contracts of less than US$50,000 may be awarded by force account procedures of the respective Executing Agency. Equipment and materials contracts costing more than US$500,000 will be by international competitive bidding. Equipment and supply contracts costing US$500,000 or less will be procured by international shopping, except for some contracts for items that are manufactured locally and unlikely to attract foreign suppliers; these will be procured through local competitive bidding in accordance with Government procedures acceptable to the Bank. Packages of less than US$50,000 may be procured by the Government's direct purchase procedures acceptable to the Bank.

Consultants

The project will provide a total of 54 person-months of international consultant services, including for the Project's national technical adviser (22 person-months), the health education program (24 person-months), the midwifery program (4 person-months) and others (2 person-months); and a total of 212 person-months of domestic consultant services for the Balochistan technical adviser (24 person-months), the health education program (98 person-months), the midwifery program (18 person-months), civil works supervision (36 person-months), and others (36 person-months). The consultants will be engaged in accordance with the Bank's Guidelines on the Use of Consultants and other arrangements acceptable to the Bank on the engagement of domestic consultants.

Estimated Date of Completion

30 June 2005