The government, international development partners and bilateral donors through an inter-active dialogue in Islamabad articulated approaches to speed up development of areas bordering Afghanistan.
The consensus was reached in a meeting chaired by Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz here on Friday.
The Governors of Balochistan and Frontier, representatives of multi-lateral and bilateral development partners, Chief Secretaries of both the provinces and Secretaries of the respective Divisions attended the meeting.
The tripartite dialogue focused on development of physical and social infrastructure, peoples' empowerment through access to education, income generation, better irrigation and availability of utilities.
The Governors and the Chief Secretaries of the respective provinces briefed the meeting about government's efforts to improve quality of life in these areas by improving education, health facilities and building infrastructure.
The NWFP Governor said that accelerated social and economic development of Fata through co-poor, participatory and gender-sensitive policies and development strategies could bring these areas into the national mainstream.
The Balochistan governor cited under development, paucity of resources, inaccessibility, protracted presence of refugee population and pull on drought, as some of the impediments in development of these areas.
Shaukat Aziz emphasised the need to generate economic activity through promotion of trade with Afghanistan to create a sustainable base for the people in these areas.
He proposed a co-ordinated approach to promote development and hoped that this dialogue would create a consultative process between the government and development partners.
Several bilateral and multilateral donors briefed the meeting on their involvement in development of these areas.
Comments
Comments are closed.