Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (Smeda) discussed the status of sustainable livelihood in Barani Area Project in Punjab as well as possibility of Smeda's involvement in the project.
A meeting was held at Smeda's Head Office, which was attended by the ADB Fact Finding Mission consisting of Ahsan Tayyab, Dave Harris, Ted Buckner, D. De Silva, Grant Curtis and Jamshed Tirmizi.
According to Smeda spokesman, its CEO Shahab Khawaja chaired the meeting, which was also attended by other officials of the Authority.
Anjum Ahmad, Director Special Projects, gave a brief description of the Authority with its ongoing and completed projects, including donor-assisted activities.
The ADB team members described the various features of the proposed project. There was a discussion on the types of entrepreneurs to be attracted from the rural area in this project. The ADB team also pointed out that their target demographic was Micro Enterprises, to which CEO Smeda said that the Authority would like to get involved in this area too.
The ADB team requested that until the project is officially started, a pilot project on Entrepreneur-ship in one district of Barani Area might be initiated by Smeda at its own expense to understand the needs and requirements of this project.
The ADB team also informed that due to cut in project size the total number of districts has been reduced from ten to four. The districts under consideration are Layyah, Bhakkar, Mianwali and Khushab. They also informed that this project is to be presented to the ADB Board in November-December 2004 and it would be started in July 2005.