War against poverty is tougher than terrorism: Farzana

War against poverty is much tougher than the on-going war against terrorism and government is determined to fight on both fronts to steer the country out of the crises, said Farzana Raja, Chairperson, Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) here on Thursday.
The government has made poverty alleviation one of its prime focused areas and it believes that without empowering women both war against poverty and terrorism cannot be won, Farzana said, while speaking as chief guest at a roundtable moot on 'Gender, Peace and Conflict in Pakistan: Knowledge, Best Practice and Research in Policy Making Processes', organised by Fatima Jinnah Women University (FJWU).
Underlining the need for empowering women, she said the country cannot make progress on any front especially in building a peaceful, tolerant and developed society without giving financial liberty to women. "Shaheed Benazir Bhutto was not only committed with the cause of uplifting the lives of poor masses, but also was an ardent supporter of women rights and women empowerment," she said, adding that BISP was launched to provide financial assistance to the poorest of the poor and it has made women empowerment an integral part of the programme.
"All benefits to the beneficiary families are being provided through the woman head of the family," she said. She said the programme has made possession of CNIC a pre-requisite for eligibility, which helped to increase the ratio of registration of women with NADRA, particularly in remote areas of the country has picked up tremendously and in total more than 10 million women have obtained CNIC during last two years.
She informed the participant that to identify deserving families in a more transparent and efficient way, nation-wide poverty survey based on internationally recognised Proxy Means Test (PMT) was being conducted and more than 70 per cent of the survey has already been completed.
The BISP chief said that under BISP's strategy, the microfinance initiative of 'Waseela-e-Haq' aims at facilitating the income generation opportunities for women, by providing them micro loans and thus giving them a chance to escape the vicious cycle of poverty. "Similarly our vocational Training Programme 'Waseela-e-Rozgar' envisages providing unskilled female workers or their nominees across Pakistan with the demand driven skill based training to enhance prospects of earning a dignified livelihood. Moreover, under 'Waseela-e- Sehet', bread earner of beneficiary families is provided life insurance of up to Rs 100,000," she maintained.
Farzana Raja said that considerable achievements have been made regarding women empowerment. However, she said, a lot of work has still to be done and shared efforts of the democratic government and civil society would go a long way in promoting the goal of gender equality and gender sensitization and for ensuring enhanced share for women in informed policy making.