"Charity in Pakistan is an unregulated sector which needs to be regulated in order to effectively alleviate poverty in the country as the resources available for charity are sufficient enough to make a huge dent in the poverty of Pakistan," said Professor Syed Hussain Haider from Akhuwat, on Wednesday while speaking at the sixth seminar and panel discussion on "poverty alleviation through corporate social responsibility" organised by the National Forum for Environment and Health.
He told the audience, "A lot of effort and resources are being wasted due to unregulated sector of charity, which is not helping in achieving the goal of poverty alleviation." Those who too made speeches were Focus Pakistan Chairman Dr Owais Farooqui, Bin Qutab Foundation Chairman Bashir Malik, Indus Venture CEO Abid Malik, NFEH Chairman Naeem Qureshi, Ambreen Waheed, Qazi Zulqarnain Siddiqui, Rafeh Iqbal, Khalid Khan and Engineer Nadeem Ashraf.
Professor Haider said in his speech, "There are a lot of topics, which are being taught as separate subjects, but charity has never been considered to be taught as a subject in our educational institutions. Pakistanis are known for making enormous charity but unfortunately still far from mitigating poverty from the country. "Basically, our charity endeavours are demand-driven whereas we need to convert charity into a supply-driven venture. For example, there used to be excess supply of food in Mitthi [Sindh] during famine-like situation, which caused loss of a lot of effort and resources.