ISLAMABAD, March 14: US Agency for International Development (USAID) announced on Thursday that it was re-opening its missions in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the new fiscal year with a focus on basic education, health, agriculture, rural development and good governance.

“These two missions will play a major role in our efforts to respond to pressing needs of the Afghan and Pakistani people,” USAID Administrator Andrew Natsios said, according to a US Embassy news release.

Natsios was testifying before the House of Representatives Appropriations Committee about US President’s $8,470 million budget request for fiscal year 2003.

“The USAID will build on its trade and investment programmes, and train farmers and government and business leaders in developing countries in the fiscal year beginning Oct 1 this year.”

The official said, as elsewhere, in South Asia, the USAID’s focus would be on basic education, health, agriculture, rural development and good governance programmes.

“And we will continue to give special emphasis to improving the status of women.

“In Pakistan, we are in the second year of a five-year, $100 million primary education and adult literacy programme,” he said.

The Administrator said the agency wanted to help developing countries improve their ability to participate in the global trading system and to reform their commercial laws.

He said the agency wanted to mobilize science and technology to reduce poverty and hunger, develop global trade opportunities for farmers, support agricultural research and training at the local level; and promote sustainable agriculture and environmental protection.

The USAID mission had been closed in Pakistan for nearly a decade.—APP