The step of conducting nation-wide first-ever poverty survey in the history of Pakistan has won the international praise for following best international practices, maintaining transparency and conducting the entire process in highly efficient manner.
It is learnt that various international organisations contributing to social safety programmes world-over including the World Bank have appreciated BISP for the successful process of conducting nation-wide door to door poverty survey.
It may be recalled here that in the first phase of the programme, all parliamentarians were taken on board irrespective of their political affiliations. Similarly, in the second phase, on the launching of the nation-wide poverty survey, letters were sent to all parliamentarians from all parties for their co-operation and to facilitate the survey teams.
The objective of the exercise was to make sure that authentic information about every household across Pakistan is collected. The global organisations working in the social sector have particularly praised the endeavour of BISP for making outreach to far-flung areas of Pakistan to identify poor population.
The survey was launched in October 2010 in all the districts of the country, including AJK and Gilgit-Baltistan to provide equal opportunity to every Pakistani who holds a Computerised National Identify Card (CNIC) to get registered with BISP regardless of caste, creed and religion.
So far, almost 98 percent of the households in the country have been surveyed while survey work in Fata has also been launched. The new system of targeting aims at a much higher degree of objectivity, using international best practices, to minimise inclusion and exclusion errors. The use of GPS (global positioning system) devices has also been made mandatory in this phase to uphold the dignity of households by conducting the survey at their doorsteps.-PR