UN help in poverty reduction

EDITORIAL (November 26 2002) : The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the International Labour Organisation (ILO) announced the other day their association with the ongoing poverty reduction efforts in Pakistan, which is indeed a reassuring circumstance.

These UN agencies would focus their attention mainly on research and investigative studies with a view to identifying the causes of the rising level of poverty in the country and to initiating projects for the creation of new employment opportunities.

The UNDP's Country Representative, Onder Yucer, announced a financial support of $160,000 in order to finance the establishment of 'Centre for Research on Poverty Reduction and Income Distribution (CRPRID),' to be based in the Planning Division of the federal government.

The centre would undertake a comprehensive study and prepare a strategy paper analysing the progress in poverty reduction and development of human resources. This would provide a guideline to the policy makers in the government to launch appropriate projects in the rural and urban areas of the country for the creation of employment opportunities for both male and female workers.

The proposed strategy paper is likely to be completed by the Planning Division early next year, in the light of which a permanent mechanism would be created within the federal ministry of labour to constantly monitor the progress of poverty reduction projects.

At the same time, the United Nations has nominated the ILO in Pakistan as an executing agency to monitor employment creation. The joint project of the UNDP and ILO aims at concentrating on the promotion of housing projects in addition to labour-intensive small and medium-scale enterprises, including those which are export-oriented.

The research study to be carried out with funding from the UNDP would also analyse the impact of the ongoing programme launched by the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (SMEDA), Khushhal Pakistan Programme and the First Women Bank.

Importance has been given to last noted institution in the context of progress in the expansion of employment opportunities for women workers in Pakistan. The ILO's efforts in the promotion of employment projects and human development in Pakistan would also take into account policy pursuits aiming at reducing the gap between the opportunities of employment for women workers and those for male workers.

The efforts in this direction by the UN agencies would provide a complementary strength to the existing wide-scale implementation of the Poverty Reduction and Growth Programme launched with IMF's assistance. Financial assistance aiming at similar objectives has also been forthcoming increasingly from the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.

The increasing emphasis by the international financial institutions on the goal of poverty reduction understandably underlines the fact that rampant large-scale poverty in Pakistan would continue to frustrate the efforts for a fairly high rate of economic growth. Secondly the existing level of poverty in Pakistan, which is estimated to embrace 35 percent of total population is attributable to mass-scale unemployment of uneducated and unskilled youths in rural areas and educated youths in urban cities.

The creation of employment opportunities therefore deserves top priority. It may be pointed out here that the funding of social sector projects in the fields of education, health, development of civic amenities in rural areas etc., by the donor agencies, has proved rather fruitless. Although the social sector projects did open new employment avenues for skilled and educated workers, the gap in the employment opportunities for unskilled and skilled workers in the rural areas has remained unattended to.

The problem would have to be addressed by active promotion of small-scale enterprises with small loan financing from institutions like the Khushhali Bank and other micro-financing agencies.



Source: Business Recorder