Omar1984
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ISLAMABAD: There is a reduction of 13 percent in poverty alleviation in those areas where Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) partner organisations have extend micro-credit facilities, Chief Executive Officer, PPAF, Kamal Hyat expressed these views during an interview with Daily Times here on Wednesday. He
said the figures were revealed by the study carried out by the Gallup survey on PPAF activities.
Like other government organisations, he said the PPAF had also the same objective of poverty alleviation and improving standard of living of people at grass root level. He said the PPAF was a new model on public private partnership with objective strengthening people at community level. It was a private entity fully sponsored by the government with provision of full autonomy. He said the organisation mainly deals with micro-credit through partner-organisations for the last 10 years. The PPAF covers 4500 villages through its network and 90 percent districts across the country benefited from micro finance scheme.
Since establishment of the organisation, the PPAF chief said that 19,000 infrastructure schemes were initiated and going on successfully till now. It established 100,000 Community Social Mobilizers (CSM), who worked with the partner organisations in the development of respective areas. Most of the development schemes were carried out through these social mobilizers.
Usually, he said, the donors come for a project and after completion they wind up every thing but the situation in PPAF was different. When the organisation completed PPAF-I with $90 million, the World Bank asked for another project PPAF-II and now again sponsored for PPAF-III. He said through partner organisations, the PPAF disbursed $533 million micro-credit and the default ratio was zero and 100 percent success.
After such success stories, the World Bank had rated the PPAF AAA rate, which was rare in the South Asia, he claimed. At the back of WB, several international financial institutions like EFAD, KFW, USDA, USAID also contacted PPAF and carried out several developmental schemes at gross root level in the country.
About funding, the MD PPAF said that through government (Economic Affairs Division) negotiations the donors forward their funding, which he claimed was spending judiciously. He said the PPAF never directly negotiate with donor agencies for financial assistance. Adviser to Prime Minister on Finance, Shaukat Tareen, said that he wanted to spend all government funds through PPAF due to track record, he claimed. Not only donors but the government also trusts us.
We work for Social Mobilization of community and through it we inform the community about their constitutional rights and create awareness among them, he added. Under this programme, the people were informed about rights of a person in constitutions and their responsibilities in the economic development of the country. Main purpose of the social mobilization was to narrow the gap between state and citizen.
About proper monitoring, Kamal Hyat said the PPAF had own evaluation, research and development cell, which visited after every three months and get critical reports from partners organisations. Two studies were also carried out by Gallup research organisation, to find out economic impact of the PPAF activities. They termed the performance of the PPAF excellent. The studies also pointed out some flaws, which were removed accordingly.
Answering another question, the MD PPAF said the organisation recent started works on to arrange finance locally from chambers of commerce and philanthropists with in the country. We want to reduce whole dependency on international donor agencies and seek financing from Gulf and Middle East countries as well as locally.
Recently, he said the PPAF contribute Rs 140 million in different mode for Internally Displaced Peoples of Buner, Malakand and Swat and expressed the hope that the organisation would contribute in rehabilitation process subject to restoration of peace there. For this purpose, he said the organisation would need intervention of local partners from the concerned affected areas.
About future target, he said the organisation needed huge funding to cover the whole country in next 10 years.
