Global Expectation and Local Pressures on Community Based Organizations in Access to Zero-Doze Parents as Polio Eradication Campaign in the Southern Areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Abstract

Polio Eradication Campaign is one of the identities on global stage along violence, conflicts and terrorism. Unfortunately, all these elements of identity when mapped get into one geographic locale for the “high risk” category i.e., Southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Understanding these challenges as global in nature having local solutions, the world has shifted its approach to engage community-based organizations (CBOs) more and more to resolve the issues which has far reaching global impact. For the prevention programs in health management system especially in immunization campaigns, the world health organization (WHO, 2021) and UNICEF (2022) have learned through its interventions in Nigeria, India and Afghanistan that CBOs are the best platforms to engage parents, clergy and other relevant stakeholders for ensuring mass mobilization in the campaign for polio eradication from Pakistan with focus on Southern Districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa designated as high risk area. An academic study conducted on this intervention called Integrated Service Delivery (ISD) explores how the office bearers of these CBOs in both districts namely Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan are over-burdened by the expectations both from the government and its international counterparts as well as the local communities, whom they claim to represent.  The study is qualitative in nature with basic questions analysed for quantitative inference retrieved from segments namely parents, community elders, lady health workers, SRSP representatives and district health management through google form for in-depth interview administered by the researcher and focus group discussions with each stakeholder as homogeneous group in both districts separately.