ISLAMABAD: Speakers on Tuesday stressed the need for implementing poverty alleviation programmes at the community level to achieve sustainable growth.
They were speaking at a policy dialogue on ‘Fragility to resilience through Citizen Led Accountability’ on the second day of the Sustainable Development Conference organized by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute in collaboration with the climate change ministry.
CEO of Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) Nadir Gul Barech said we were at a critical juncture in Pakistan’s journey towards resilience and sustainable development.
He said PPAF believed that by holding elected representatives accountable, citizens could be architects of their own future.
“When citizens engage in planning monitoring and evaluation actions of their leaders, foster the sense of trust develops in the political system,” he said.
Mr Barech further said it was essential for proper functioning of democracy.
“We always encourage citizens to demand accountability of their leaders. There is a need to bridge the gap between the state and citizens and for that national level education was required,” he added.
“A system-based approach needs to be adopted. Community’s development is the solution and can also be the policy,” he said, adding that when communities identify their needs, they implement their development projects.”
CEO Sarhad Rural Programme Masoodul Mulk said community development was very important, as it had two equations: one is organisation and the second is building accountability.
All poverty alleviation funds and rural support programmes were attempts to create a responsible organisation that would be able to respond to community needs, he said.
Momi Saleem from Unicef said nobody was speaking about environmental problems before this but now they were doing so, thanks to social media.
She said local people needed to be engaged in social, economic and other kind of issues through different platforms.
Chairman Board of Directors, Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) Mohammad Tehseen said resilience was the right of every citizen of the state, and the Constitution also provided this right.
Panelist Shahid Naeem said trust deficit between the government and citizens was two-way traffic.
“People do not want to pay taxes while the government keeps all policies confidential,” he said, adding that every legislation remains as top secret until it is approved.
