The government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Wednesday organised a high level moot of development partners to assess the progress on development initiatives and work towards future plans for carrying out development projects in partnership with international donors in order to achieve the development agenda of the present provincial government.
This one day consultative workshop held under the auspices of Planning and Development Department, was represented by all the Sectoral Co-ordination Committees (SCCs) under the Strategic Development Partnership Frame work(SDPF) jointly developed by the provincial government and donor agencies.
The workshop aimed at an inclusive dialogue to give its final recommendations, identifying key strategic achievements and challenges for discussion in the strategic dialogue and propose a way forward for the effective and result oriented implementation of the SDPF. The Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has adopted an SDPF with the development partners/Donor Agencies with the aim to create synergies for gearing up the socio-economic development of the province through joint efforts by the government and its development partners.
"The Provincial government from the very first day of its inception was working on its reform agenda to ensure transparency, accountability, merit, good governance with the ultimate objective of better service delivery and socio-economic development across the province. He added that in this regard SDPF had been very useful and was expected to yield the desired results" said Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Khalid Pervez in his opening speech.
He informed the participants that the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has developed SDPF and Integrated Development Strategy (IDS) for the province to translate government development agenda into tangible initiatives in collaboration with the development partners. He stated that the provincial government attached great importance to the recommendations and ideas of the sectoral committees, adding that those recommendations were incorporated in the last year financial budget. He urged upon the sectoral committees to work with the same zeal and enthusiasm so that the desired results could be achieved in the target sectors.
It merits a mention here that nine Sectoral Co-ordination Committees have been notified by the provincial government in the areas of economic growth and job creation, peace building & Rule of Law, Tangible improvements in social sectors Education & Health, improved citizens participation, improved transparency & accountability, enhanced fiscal space for development, gender equity and donor harmonisations & efficient use of country systems.
The SCCs have been mandated with the task of aligning Sector Strategic objectives of the SDPF, developing a road map, identifying key milestones and targets with annual break down up to the year 2018, co-ordinating with civil society and public to seek their advice in strategic prioritisation and prepare periodic reports etc. The SCCs after a thorough group discussion put forward their recommendations to finalise a road map in terms of progress on the on going initiative and also bringing up new development programmes and ideas for the future funding to make the implantation of the integrated development strategy more meaningful and productive which is going to be launched soon.
The Integrated Development Strategy (2014-18) will provide a four years road map to the provincial government to achieve it desired results in target sectors. It will operationally governments transformational reform agenda and update and integrates the existing development strategies. The workshop was attended by administrative secretaries, other concerned high ups of the provincial government and representatives of development partners including World Bank, European Union, NUDP, DFID, GIZ etc.