ISLAMABAD, July 12: The US Agency for International Development (USAID) will resume operations in Pakistan next week.

A senior US official told Dawn on Friday that the mission director for Pakistan, Mark S. Ward, will arrive here on July 15 which will mark the reopening of the USAID mission in the country,” said the official.

The USAID programmes in Pakistan were wrapped up in 1995 following a US legislation barring foreign aid to Pakistan.

Interestingly, Mark Ward was assigned the task of winding up the USAID operations in the mid-Nineties. He also served as regional legal advisor in Pakistan from 1991 to 1994.

Ward will be permanently based in Pakistan, will oversee the $50 million USAID programme for 2002 that will focus primarily on education and health care.

According to an embassy official the USAID mission will temporarily work out of the US embassy.

Not giving specifics of the mission size and staff strength, sources in the US embassy said recruitments for the mission had already started.

A statement from the White House on July 10 said that President Bush intends to nominate the former US ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlin, to head USAID’s Bureau for Asia and the Near East.