Peshawar: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has formally launched a performance framework aimed at improving governance, enhancing the quality of public services, and strengthening accountability across government institutions.
In the first phase, performance agreements have been signed with the Health Department, the Polio Eradication Programme, and the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI).
The initiative is part of the provincial government’s broader reform agenda, introducing measurable targets, defined timelines, and a structured performance evaluation system to improve service delivery, said an official release.
The agreements were signed between Chief Secretary Shahab Ali Shah and the relevant administrative secretaries in the presence of provincial ministers at the Chief Secretary’s Office.
The signing ceremony was attended by Additional Chief Secretary (General) Muhammad Abid Majeed, Additional Chief Secretary Planning and Development Islam Zeb, Provincial Health Minister Khaleeq ur Rahman, and senior officials.
Under the agreement with the Health Department, the government has set a target of recruiting and deploying 500 new doctors at Basic Health Units (BHUs) and Rural Health Centres (RHCs) across the province to ensure that no facility remains without a doctor.
The department will also upgrade 250 BHUs and RHCs to provide round-the-clock maternity services, improving access to safe maternal healthcare in remote areas and helping reduce maternal mortality.
In addition, targets have been set for the construction, rehabilitation, and upgradation of basic and comprehensive emergency maternal and newborn care centres.
The framework also includes plans to hand over the management of 62 district-level secondary hospitals to professional institutions to improve hospital administration and the quality of healthcare services.
A separate tripartite performance agreement was signed for polio eradication by Chief Secretary Shahab Ali Shah, Health Secretary Shahid Ullah Khan, Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) Polio Coordinator Shafiullah Khan, and EPI Director Dr. Muhammad Sohail Farooqi.
Under the agreement, the Health Department, EOC Polio, and EPI have committed to achieving joint targets for polio eradication.
These include deploying 150 additional doctors to BHUs and RHCs in southern districts, reducing the number of missed children during polio campaigns in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to below 10,000, and ensuring consecutive polio-free environmental samples in Peshawar, Bannu, and North Waziristan.
The EPI has also pledged to keep more than 97 percent of vaccination centres fully operational and increase the province’s full childhood immunization coverage to 85 percent.
Addressing the ceremony, Provincial Health Minister Khaleeq ur Rahman said that although the government, under the leadership of CM Muhammad Sohail Afridi, had allocated a record budget for the health sector, significant work remained to be done.
He said the growing disease burden posed a major challenge and reaffirmed the government’s commitment to improving healthcare services across the province.
Chief Secretary Shahab Ali Shah said the health sector remained the provincial government’s top priority and emphasized that the objective was to ensure affordable, quality healthcare for every citizen.
He noted that efforts were underway to ensure doctors at every primary healthcare facility, provide 24-hour maternal healthcare services, and improve the performance of underperforming hospitals.
He added that the policy of entrusting hospitals to professional management institutions had already produced encouraging results, citing improvements at the Mushti Mela Hospital in Orakzai after its management was transferred.
The Chief Secretary said polio eradication remained one of the government’s highest priorities, with special focus on reaching every child, vaccinating missed children, and strengthening routine immunization.
He described the Performance Framework as a major governance reform that would institutionalize accountability and results-based management, enabling objective evaluation of departments and officers while rewarding strong performance and improving public service delivery.