The 'Small Project Facility (SPF)--a project that has been designed by European Union (EU) for Asian region particularly Pakistan--has achieved positive results in various sectors such as economic sector, health, education, good governance in different departments besides earthquake rehabilitation activities.'
This was stated by Michael Dale, head of operations, EU, who is also leading a delegation of European Commission (EC) to Pakistan, in his address at a 'Media Dialogue' organised by SPF at a local hotel on Tuesday. He said that SPF designed program is looking at transparency in government departments, besides several other sectors and social issues.
"We have acquired good and positive results after implementing our projects at different places as EC's recently implemented projects proved successful in the past as well," he said.
"European Commission is involved in improving quality of education in Pakistan, while the Commission also initiated some other projects like earthquake relief and rehabilitation activity," Michael said, adding that the EC has also undertaken a project about 'Violence against women in Pakistan', which would not only help protecting innocent women but would also help them getting justice.
Michael assured EC's continued and consistent support to the government in assisting different projects. Iffat Ara of Social Policy and Development Centre (SPDC), in her address, highlighted the efforts of EC's SPF regarding elimination of textile quotas and Pakistan-EU trade. "Our objective is to contribute a better understanding of the issues related to the elimination of textile quotas and Pakistan-EU trade and improved policy making in this respect," she remarked.
She underlined that SPDC is conducting in-depth and analytical research, producing publications, research reports, policy brief, conducting seminars with the objective to initiate policy dialogue and raising awareness among the stakeholders (such as government, business associations, academia and media).
Usman Malik, another local SPF representative from Punjab, shed light on the e-governance program of SPF, and said his team had initiated a 130,000 euro project titled 'Integrated Electronic Directives Management System (eDirectives)' for Punjab's Chief Minister directives.
He said that the integrated system would be implemented at the chief minister and chief secretary's secretariat, I&C department and other departments as well, which would not only improve accuracy and swiftness but would also ensure transparency and accountability, using European and Asian experiences and expertise.
"The eDirective project is being undertaken by the EC's SPF in co-ordination with Iqbal Hamid Trust of Pakistan (IHT), AJE (Spain) and Punjab Information Technology Board," he added.
He said that the eDirective project's prototype has been developed and the interviews of stakeholders have been completed and a pilot project is running for the last three months.
Usman said that the project is aimed to improve governance and administrative capacities of target groups, and to establish regulatory standards for information management relating to the storage and progress monitoring of the government's directives.
He stressed that the implementation of the said project would enhance capacity of the government to continuously access the relevance and effectiveness of policies carried out, especially in social sector development.
Comments
Comments are closed.