KARACHI, July 17: Sindh minister for finance, planning and development, Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh, has stressed the need for undertaking concerted efforts to eradicate poverty.

He was speaking as chief guest at the day-long consultative seminar on poverty alleviation organized on Wednesday by the Karachi University at the Shaikh Zayed Islamic Centre in collaboration with the government of Sindh.

The minister said that education, exports and reliance on the private sector were of special significance in the fight against poverty.

Pointing out that 26 million people were poor in the country and the income of one third of the population was less than one dollar a day, he said the situation in the province of Sindh was worst.

He mentioned the steps initiated by the provincial government for the promotion of education in Sindh such as compulsory primary education, distribution of free text-books in the government primary schools and stipends for girls in secondary schools.

Dr Shaikh said that an endowment of Rs1 billion had been set up to help finance poor but talented students. He also mentioned the Khushal Pakistan Programme and the drought emergency relief assistance.

In his speech on the occasion, vice-chancellor of the Karachi University, Prof Dr Zafar Saeed Saifi, shed light on the work being done by his institution for poverty alleviation.

Brig A.S. Nasir, chairman of the governor’s inspection, enquiries and implementation team, in his speech, said that a grand festival would be organized on August 27 at the Hindu Gymkhana here and on the occasion the universities in the province would set up stalls to display the projects they had prepared with regard to poverty alleviation.

Dr Peter Baillie, dean of biological science at Baqai University, said that universities could help provide reliable data to be utilized in the development process.

He said that community participation in the development process was an important factor and more attention should be paid to quality education, job creation and income generation.

Ms Khadija Khan, general manager, monitoring, evaluation and research of the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund, highlighted the role of universities in research and studies for providing data and information. She pointed out that her organization had initiated studies on poverty mapping at the national level.— APP