Federal Minister and Chairperson Benazir Income Support Programme ((BISP) Farzana Raja visited the World Bank Headquarters at Washington where she had series of meetings with high level officials from all over the world focusing on the key components of co-operation between BISP and the Bank, says a press release issued here on Saturday.
During her first meeting with Sri Mulyani Indrawati, WB Managing Director, the latter appreciated the remarkable achievement of BISP in the field of social protection in such a short time. The MD valued the idea of BISP Chairperson for extending the targeted subsidies to the families under the poverty line. She extended her full support to BISP and directed the relevant departments to explore avenues as to how the Bank could play a more effective role in helping BISP in the implementation of the graduation programmes.
During the meeting, Farzana Raja reiterated BISP management's commitment to transparency and accountability and offered to welcome any suggestion which might further help in this regard. Being the most effective solution in the long-term, the Minister offered to collaborate with the Bank in graduating BISP beneficiaries from the programme and enabling them live an independent life.
On this occasion, she clarified that BISP currently was only serving the poorest of the poor; but it also realises the fact that the targeted subsidies might also be extended to the families residing below the poverty line. Indrawati also accepted the Minister's invitation to visit Pakistan and to see on the ground as to what BISP has actually achieved.
In Chairperson BISP's interaction with the Executive Directors of some important countries (USA, UK, China, Japan, Germany, Iran) at the luncheon hosted in her honour, she briefed about the remarkable success achieved by BISP in a short span of four years.
Faced with challenges, she underlined the importance of bold but innovative decisions to succeed. The Executive Directors appreciated the unmatchable success achieved by BISP and extended their full support to help BISP in achieving even more marvels.
Later, in her address to the Bank staff (Pakistan Desk), Farzana Raja appreciated the valuable role played by both regional and global development partners in supporting BISP in materialising its objectives of poverty eradication and women empowerment. She urged the global partners must extend exemplary support to enable BISP to win the unconventional fight against poverty by eradicating vulnerability which is the root cause of extremism. In this context, she specifically mentioned the challenges faced during the targeting. Further, she also informed that BISP had implemented state-of the-art technology based systems to ensure transparency.-PR
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