ISLAMABAD, Nov 18: Capacity building in every sector has assumed top priority for attaining sustainable development in developing countries under the ever changing socio-economic conditions of the world.

This was stated by former finance minister Sartaj Aziz at the launching ceremony of a book entitled ‘Capacity for Development’ commissioned by the UNDP here on Monday.

Mr Aziz was of the view that the local capacity building was the most important goal of development in the coming years. He said unfortunately over the years despite huge allocations in the social sector things could not take off because the very people responsible for policy-making lacked the required knowledge.

He said, at present, in a paradigm shift, knowledge-based developments had replaced resource-based and the countries as small as Japan had proved that with limited resources high levels of progress could be achieved.

He further added that complete revision of policy implementations was required at grass-roots level through capacity building in the country and that was only possible when the government concentrated more on micro instead of macro-level economic indicators.

He said the government had amassed foreign exchange worth $8.5 billion but with the passage of time more and more people were being pushed below poverty line and finding it difficult to make both ends meet.

Khalid Malik, one of the book’s co-editors, said the book was part of a larger initiative on reforming technical cooperation for capacity development at UNDP, and benefited from results of its research, electronic discussions, roundtable conferences and country-level discussions.