Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Wednesday reiterated Pakistan''s commitment to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, saying main emphasis was on poverty alleviation, creation of jobs, promoting education and health facilities.
Addressing the launching ceremony of Millennium Development Goals Report 2005 here, Shaukat Aziz said despite facing challenge of long-term reconstruction in the quake-hit areas, the government was determined to change Pakistan''s economic and social landscape through MDGs.
He said, "our people have the ingenuity, resilience and resolve to transform challenges into opportunities."
The Prime Minister said Pakistan had moved a long way towards achieving a vibrant economy, a smooth functioning democracy, improved governance, and becoming a major player in the regional and global peace and stability initiatives.
He said through the philosophy of liberalisation, deregulation, and privatisation as well as reforms regime over the past six years, the government had turned around the country''s economy putting it on a high growth trajectory, increasing the per capita income.
Shaukat Aziz said that all economic indicators were sustaining the positive trend during the first three months of the current fiscal year.
He said the government had spent close to a trillion rupees on the development of the social sectors and poverty-related programmes during the last five years, adding investment had started yielding dividends while net primary enrolment, literacy and primary completion rates are on the rise.
The Prime Minister said that the government was now focusing on Hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, infant and maternal mortality, reproductive health and blindness.
He said major initiatives of ''Clean Drinking Water'' and "Electricity to All" by 2007 were already under implementation.
Shaukat Aziz said, "Pakistan has made significant progress in all critical areas since the UN Summit in September 2005 moving from low human development to medium human development countries."
Referring to the MDGs report, the Prime Minister said that it also substantiated the fact that "we are reasonably poised to achieve these goals".
He said that the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper and the Medium-Term Development Framework underscored Pakistan''s commitment to the MDGs and reflected its unflinching resolve to scale up the efforts towards realising these goals by 2015.
The Prime Minister said that Pakistan had been facing the challenges including sustaining high growth, improving productivity and efficiency, creating more employment opportunities, improving the skill, equitable distribution of wealth, focusing on weak social indicators such as infant and maternal mortality.
He said access to speedy and inexpensive justice, access to social and physical capital by the poor and weak implementation apparatus were the other challenges before the government.
He said there was need to be more focused in the approach and agenda that requires consistency, continuity, and predictability in the policies to provide comfort and confidence to the potential investors, both local and foreign.
The Prime Minister said strong emphasis should be on agricultural and rural development, channelling public-private investment into education and health sectors to help improving social indicators further.
He said, "Our educational system needs reinvigoration to catch up with technological advancements."
Referring to poor response from the administration and red-tapism, the Prime Minister said that simple process and procedures and timely decisions could encourage investment.
He especially referred the simplification of income tax collection system and added that it had improved the collection, although the officials of tax department and some businessmen were against this procedure.
The Prime Minister said innumerable delays, myriad of procedures and documents and weak capacity not only hampered accelerated growth but also scuttle the inflow of foreign investment.
He said that with a view to ensure the millennium development goals by 2015, it was critical for the developed world to provide access to markets, new technologies, and favourable terms of trade to help the developing world to help themselves.
Shaukat Aziz said the MDGs could change the fate of the world if all the countries would cooperate and help each other.
The Prime Minister said the government had been striving to make Pakistan a developed, progressive, modern, enlightened, and democratic Islamic state that provides peace, prosperity and security to its people.
UN resident co-ordinator Jan Vandemoortele speaking on the occasion appreciated various achievements of Pakistan towards MDGs.
He especially mentioned the bold steps taken by the government to increase representation of women in the democratic institutions and improving educational facilities for girls.
Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Dr Muhammad Akram Sheikh highlighting various aspects of Pakistan''s Millennium Development Goals Report 2005 said out of total 34 targets, progress on 16 was on track while the government was behind on 12 targets.
He said poverty alleviation, which was 32 percent in 2000-01 would be 13 percent in 2015 under MDGs.
Akram Sheikh said Pakistan was committed to achieve the goals and there had been improvement in all the sectors towards the targets to be achieved by 2015.
Referring to impact of the quake hit, he said it was very marginal on the MDGs.
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