ISLAMABAD: The Central Development Working Party (CDWP) approved two mega projects at a cost of Rs8.175 billion, with grant of Global Partnership for Education (GPE) and loan of the World Bank (WB), to support education system in Pakistan under the COVID-19 pandemic.
The CDWP met with Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Mohammad Jehanzeb Khan in the chair at P-Block Secretariat on Wednesday.
Senior officials from the Planning Commission and federal ministries/divisions also participated in the meeting, while representatives from the provincial governments participated through video conference.
According to documents available with Business Recorder, the World Bank will finance $4.875 million loan for “Pandemic Response Effectiveness Project (PREP) for COVID-19 and Response, Recovery and Resilience in Education-Programming during COVID-19 by the Pakistan,” projects with exchange rate Rs166.25= 1US$.
The projects were not reflected in the PSDP 2020-2021.
The Concept Clearance Committee/CDWP cleared the concept proposal at estimated cost of $230 million including GPE of grant of $20 million, the Department for International Development (DFID) grant of $10 million, and the World Bank loan of $200 million.
The Economic Affairs Division (EAD) will sign Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for this project.
The Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training, Islamabad, presented two mega projects in the CDWP meeting.
First project namely, “Pandemic Response Effectiveness Project (PREP) for COVID-19” at cost of Rs4.875 billion was approved in the meeting.
The project period of completion would be 24 months, the objective of this project is to prepare and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan, to address significant disruptive impact that keep children, teachers and administrators out of school for prolonged period.
The project will focus on: Support schools and parents in distance learning activities, remote learning from TV/radio broadcast, virtual network and support policy changes and their implementation to increase the capacity of the education system to deal with future emergencies that contribute to school closures.
According to documents, the second project of education presented in the meeting namely, Response Recovery Resilience in Education Programming during COVID-19 by Pakistan is not reflected in PSDP 2020-21.
The GPE has committed to provide $19.85 million grant for the project.
The second project, “Response Recovery Resilience in Education Programming during COVID-19 by the Pakistan” valued at Rs3.30 billion was approved by the CDWP.
The period of completion of this project would be 20 months and this project would support short- and medium-term response and recovery needs under the COVID-9 pandemic, while establishing the technical and institutional capacity to build back a stronger and more resilience education system, with a focus on disadvantaged population in lagging areas in all provinces.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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