Lahore, Pakistan | 7 August 2026 (TNS)– The Government of Balochistan and the National AI Hub for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (MNCH), based at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS), have signed an MoU to establish a strategic partnership aimed at strengthening maternal, newborn, and child health services through artificial intelligence (AI), digital innovation, and evidence-informed decision-making.
The MoU reflects a shared commitment to harnessing emerging technologies to address persistent health challenges and improve outcomes for women, newborns, and children across Balochistan. Through the collaboration, the Government of Balochistan and the National AI Hub will identify priority areas where AI-enabled solutions can strengthen health systems, enhance service delivery, and inform policy and planning.
The signing ceremony at LUMS brought together senior officials from the Government of Balochistan, University leadership, researchers, public health specialists, and technical experts. The Government of Balochistan delegation was led by Mr. Mujeeb-ur-Rehman, Secretary Health, and included Dr. Shahkoh Mengal, Chief, Health Sector Reforms Unit; Dr. Ababgar Baloch, Provincial Coordinator, Balochistan Health Management Information System (BHMIS); Dr. Muhammad Dawood, Director Technical, Health Department; Dr. Sher Afghan Raisani, Provincial Coordinator, Health Department; and Dr. Asfanyar Sherani, Head of the WHO Sub-Office, Balochistan. The delegation also included Mr. Jahangir Bazai, Senior Consultant, and representatives from the Poverty Eradication Initiative (PEI), Balochistan, including Mr. Ahsan Azam and Mr. Muhammad Imran. UNICEF Balochistan also participated virtually.
Participants discussed Balochistan’s MNCH priorities, its evolving digital health landscape, and opportunities to use AI and locally grounded data to strengthen health services across the province.
Dr. Tariq Jadoon, Provost and Acting Vice Chancellor, LUMS, said, “This partnership with the Government of Balochistan presents an exciting opportunity. Through the National AI Hub, we are leveraging computer science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to improve people’s health, and we are pleased to contribute to this important work.”
Welcoming the delegation, Dr. Walter Schwarzacher, Dean, Syed Babar Ali School of Science and Engineering at LUMS, said, “The work being done by the National AI Hub provides a way to take the fundamental research carried out at LUMS and apply it in ways that bring real benefits. This is an area in which we can demonstrate that AI can make a tangible difference to people’s health and lives.”
Dr. Maryam Mustafa, Director of the National AI Hub, and Associate Professor of Computer Science, emphasised that the partnership would be grounded in Balochistan’s specific context and priorities. She said, “Balochistan should not be seen merely as a deployment site. We want to understand what home-grown, localised, and contextualised tools for Balochistan, built in Balochistan, should look like. By involving partners from the design phase, we can help ensure that what is built is adopted, has longevity, and serves the province’s needs.”
Speaking on behalf of the Government of Balochistan, Mr. Mujeeb Ur Rehman, Secretary, Health Department, said, “This is not just another project for us. It is a project through which we hope to improve maternal, newborn, and child health indicators. LUMS brings the technology and expertise, and we bring the commitment to address the challenges we face. Together, this partnership can deliver the results we are seeking.”
The partnership will focus on collaborative research, capacity strengthening, and the co-development, piloting, and rigorous evaluation of AI-enabled solutions. It will also generate evidence to support policy and programme implementation. Potential areas of collaboration include digital health, health information systems, predictive analytics, clinical decision support, local-language health tools, and responsible AI for public health.
The collaboration will prioritise solutions designed with, rather than simply deployed in, Balochistan. This approach will help ensure that new tools respond to the province’s infrastructure, languages, public health priorities, and service-delivery realities, while creating a pathway from evidence generation to responsible scale-up.
The National AI Hub for MNCH serves as a national platform for advancing the responsible use of artificial intelligence and digital innovation to improve maternal, newborn, and child health in Pakistan. Through partnerships with governments, academia, healthcare providers, and development partners, the Hub translates research into scalable solutions that strengthen health systems and expand equitable access to quality care.
The collaboration with the Government of Balochistan marks an important step towards developing locally relevant, evidence-based innovations that support the province’s health priorities and contribute to Pakistan’s broader digital health agenda.
