ISLAMABAD: Despite efforts to raise the literacy rate, unemployment in the region is still very high, Azad Jammu and Kashmir President Sardar Masood Khan said on Tuesday. He said this while talking to United Nations Resident Coordinator in Pakistan Neil Buhne. According to the official statement, Neil Buhne visited Kashmir to meet senior government officials and discuss development priorities in the region. During the meeting, they discussed the challenges and opportunities facing the UN development initiatives in Pakistan and explored avenues to further strengthen the partnership between the government of Pakistan and UN on key issues such as education, nutrition, employment, disaster-risk reduction, food security, health amongst others. President Sardar Masood said that there were challenges related to diminishing donor assistance after the 2005 earthquake and continuing risks from naturally induced disasters. He also stated that there were various opportunities that the government was focusing on which included ongoing development schemes, hydropower projects, skill development of educated youth and tourism. “We will work with the UN on all projects including the Sustainable Development Goals,” the AJK president said. During his two-day visit, Neil Buhne visited an e-learning centre established at the police training school in Muzaffarabad, where he met senior officials of the police who briefed him about the centre’s training modality. The programme supported by UNODC in 2010 focused on providing foundational knowledge to law enforcement agencies. Until now, 42,000 law enforcement personnel in Pakistan have completed over 260,000 hours of training on core law enforcement functions including: searches and interdiction techniques, evidence collection and preservation, detecting and investigating transnational organized crimes, criminal intelligence, and crime scene investigations. Published in Daily Times, August 23rd 2017.