ISLAMABAD: A delegation of Asian Development Bank (ADB) lead by Director General Central and West Asia Department (CWRD) Mr. Werner E. Liepach called on Secretary BISP Mr. Omar Hamid Khan here at Islamabad. DG ADB appreciated different initiatives of BISP and acknowledged BISP efforts for graduating vulnerable women out of poverty. He especially praised the new projects being launched by BISP including the Graduation Model and assured ADBs full support in this regard. ADB has an agreement with BISP under which nearly $ 396 m are being provided to ensure the social safety of most vulnerable women of Pakistan. Secretary BISP appreciated the long standing institutional collaboration between ADB and BISP, and added that the collaboration has now matured into a structured and meaningful engagement. He said that ADB project enabled BISP to expand its cash transfer program by registering additional eligible families. The secretary congratulated Mr. Werner E. Liepach on his promotion and assumption of charge as the Director General ADB Central and West Asia Department. He further added that he looks forward to support from ADB in the up scaling efforts of graduation model. The BISP Board recently approved two graduation components i.e. Business Incubation for Self – Employment (BISE) and Direct Cash. Their key features include profiling of targeted households for self-employment, provision of technical skill trainings to selected beneficiaries, Micro Investment Plan (MIP) and income generating grants for business start-ups. A total of 100,000 households will be covered under the graduation model. The three types of graduation options include PKR 70,000 for voluntarily giving up UCT for 4 years, PKR 54,000 for voluntarily giving up UCT for 3 years and PKR 54,000 for voluntarily giving up UCT for 4 years. The Research and Evaluation costs will be funded by Gates Foundation. Initially, two pilot projects will be tested in 14 districts where NSER is completed. It was also informed that 5 districts (Bahawalpur, Charsadda, Jacobabad, Nasirabad and Ketch) are selected for Business Incubation for Self Employment and 3 districts (Faisalabad, Chakwal and Lakki Marwat) for Direct Cash component. Implementation will be carried out by BISP through its regional & Tehsil Offices. The two components will be implemented from March 2018 to December 2020. The scaling-up of the project is expected to start from September 2018 onwards. Published in Daily Times, February 20th 2018.