Former governor State Bank of Pakistan Dr Ishrat Husain on Saturday proposed that besides extending the network of micro-finance, co-ordination among the organisations was also needed to cover at least 50 percent of the people living below the poverty line in the country.
He added during Global Micro-entrepreneurship Awards (GMA) ceremony here that there were about 6.3 million households living below the poverty line and emphasised that micro-finance institutions should extend their services to the most deprived and remote areas of the country.
Dr Ishrat said, "micro-credit is a powerful instrument to alleviate poverty and it should be extended to most deprived areas and masses."
According to the bank's new strategy for provision of micro credit to the poor in the next five years, Ishrat said it was targeting 50 percent of the poor to provide micro-credit to them in agriculture, livestock, entrepreneurship and other small businesses.
He further said that to accomplish the strategy, help of United Nations and donor agencies like Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank was needed. "Besides, NGOs civil societies and local governments could also play a vital role in converting the strategy into reality."
Dr Ishrat said that the deprivation index of the country's 100 districts points out that there were about 25 districts where about 60-70 percent of the population was below the poverty line. Neither NGOs nor social societies or the government had paid heed to them in provision of social services.