Poverty alleviation in Pakistan: Brazil for launching pilot project

The government of Brazil has shown keen interest to initiate a symbolic pilot project in Pakistan to improve the living standard of rural folk in particular and agriculture sector in general as part of his country's zero hunger and poverty campaign.
A visiting Diplomatic Minister of Brazil, Milton Rondo, who is also Co-ordinator General of International Actions in the Fight against Hunger in the Ministry of External Relations, expressed the interest during a working dinner arranged by the Embassy of Brazil.
The diplomatic minister highlighted the steps of President Lula of Brazil, who inherited a well-established set of welfare policies aimed at improving the health and education of Brazil's poorest communities and putting cash directly into the pockets of poor families.
Briefing the participants, Milton Rondo said that vision of zero hunger strategy of Brazil was not limited to domestic hunger but also apply in case of external emergency like humanitarian needs.
Advocating the anti-poverty schemes of Brazil, he said, credit went to his country as it reinitiated the United Nation's system of land reform in 2006, which was abandoned.
"We are not intending to move food from one place to another despite giving huge donation to World Food Programme," he said. The only criteria of providing food to such countries, which have no capacity to exercise their rights to agriculture like Palestine, Somalia and similar counties.
"Being a co-ordinator general against fight against hunger, we have capacity to develop agriculture sector on emergency grounds," he said. In this background, Brazil was keen to initiate some symbolic anti-poverty projects with financial co-operation of Pakistan. He identified projects like better nutrition and quality food for school going children and community development. "We want to initiate in this sector because we have knowledge in this field," Milton stressed.
Ex-Senator Anwar Baig in his suggested the Brazilian side to consider those backward areas of Pakistan where militancy is getting the ground which was result of extreme poverty. He said if Brazil assisted the government in providing vocational training and skill development in those areas it would be a great help to people. He further suggested the diplomatic minister to come up with some scholarships for the youth of Pakistan so that their capacity in various fields could be enhanced.
Responding to Anwar Baig suggestions, Ambassador of Brazil to Pakistan Alferdo Leoni said his government might consider awarding scholarships to Pakistani students but language bearer was a biggest issue. He said Portuguese was spoken in Brazil and in Pakistan there were no such institutes to teach their languages.
Representative of World Food Programme Wolfgang Herbinger admired the contribution of $700 million to WFP to purchase food for the victims of Monsoon flood. "Brazil took the lead by approaching WFP first to purchase high nutrition biscuits and other food items", he said.
The other participants, who attended the meeting include Kevin Gallagher, Head of Mission FAO, Pascal Villeneuve, Representative UNICEF, Mengesha Kebede, Representative UNHCR and Gocha Guchasvili, Head of Operations Red Cross.