Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The European Union (EU) and the Balochistan government have jointly designed a six-year programme in which the EU would ill contribute 45 million euros (PKR Rs 5 billion) to support community-led local development and local governance.

Financing agreements of the Balochistan Rural Development and Community Empowerment Programme and the International Labour and Environment Standards Programme were signed on Wednesday between the European Union and the Pakistan government. Economic Affairs Division Secretary Tariq Bajwa signed the agreements on behalf of Pakistan while EU’s Chargé d’Affaires Stefano Gatto signed on behalf of the union.

The Balochistan Rural Development and Community Empowerment Programme would help communities as well as provincial and local authorities to partner in reducing the negative impact of economic deprivation, poverty and social inequality, environmental degradation and climate change. It aims to build and empower resilient communities in identifying and implementing socio-economic development activities on a sustainable basis in partnership with local authorities.

The programme objectives are twofold: to enable communities to implement community-driven socio-economic development interventions and capability to influence public policy decision making for quality service delivery, and to capacitate local authorities to manage and involve communities in the local public sector planning, financing and implementation process. The programme would also assist the Balochistan in formulation of a policy framework to institutionalise and sustain community-led local development approaches, and to improve public finance management in the province.

Chargé d’Affaires Stefano Gatto thanked the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development, the Ministry of Climate Change, ILO and WWF on the occasion of the signing of the EU funded International Labour and Environment Standards (ILES) project in Pakistan.

Gatto said that the EU firmly believes in the importance of rule of law as a key factor for inclusive growth and development, applied to every dimension of law, and in particular labour law. “The project will not only help the competitiveness of Pakistani products if they are labelled ‘fair trade’ but will also help Pakistan to improve the use of international standards in terms of environment. Furthermore, the respect of international environmental standards will allow Pakistan to use the label of ‘green’ products, which will increase competitiveness of Pakistan,” he added.

This 12.6 million euros project would promote the enforcement, implementation and compliance with ILES by public and private sector institutions and organisations in Pakistan.

This six-year programme should start later this year. The EU has allocated 653 million euros to finance development projects in Pakistan during 2014-2020, focusing principally on rural development, education and vocational training, as well as on governance, human rights and rule of law.