Sania holds dialogue with tribal youth, discusses developmental, poverty alleviation issues

PESHAWAR: Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection and BISP Chairperson, Dr Sania Nishtar on Thursday held an intensive dialogue with youth from the newly-merged districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa including North Waziristan, South Waziristan and Khyber to discuss development issues, poverty alleviation and youth’s participation in these efforts.

Over 350 youth from the three tribal districts who are undergoing six months vocational trainings at the Human Resource Centre of Sarhad Rural Support Programme (SRSP), Peshawar, attended the dialogue.

The dialogue is part of SRSP’s efforts to bring policy-makers and citizens together to identify common economic problems that people face at the grassroots level and find ways and means of addressing them by the state and its partners. The vocational training is funded by the USAID through the UNDP.

The youth from the three districts explained that easy loans would help them set up enterprises and benefit from the training opportunity that has been provided to them.

They said that the training was a wonderful opportunity to learn new skills in sectors of the economy where there was demand for them.

The youth pointed out issues in the service delivery faced in the education and drinking water sector which needed to be addressed in an innovative way keeping in view the remoteness of the region.

Dr Sania Nishtar explained different social protection and poverty programmes under the umbrella of Ehsas Programme, which the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf government had initiated.

She said people in the newly-merged districts would soon start benefitting from these programmes. Dr Sania Nishtar had the opportunity to go to different learning laboratories at the training centre where vocational training is being provided in different trades. These trainings are certified by the City and Guild, London.

She said that the poverty alleviation programmes of the government would like to learn from the grassroots experience of the rural support programmes and she would be organising a session for this purpose very soon.

Dr Sania Nishtar remarked that the test of any policy was in implementation and any organisation operating in these remote regions brought invaluable experience in bridging the gap between policy and implementation.