KARACHI, Feb 4: Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) has disbursed over Rs 2.5 billion in more than 75 districts of the country through 35 partner organizations. The fund has undertaken 3,000 projects since April 2000.

This was revealed by the chief executive, PPAF, Kamal Hyat, at a press conference on Tuesday. Director PPAF Humayun Murad was also present.

The PPAF had also disbursed Rs 1.3 billion under micro-credit programme, Rs 750 million in infrastructure projects and the remaining in training for capacity-building, he said.

“In view of the past remarkable performance of the PPAF in the past three years, the World Bank has already committed to start the second phase of the project,” he said. The PPAF was established by the government as a company under Companies Ordinance (1984) and the Fund is funded by the World Bank.

He said he was confident that all the funds be disbursed prior to the end of the project period (June 2004). He said that the PPAF will maintain high

standards of accountability, project quality for infrastructure schemes and a 100 per cent recovery rate for micro-credit loans.

He said most of the targets have been met while others have been surpassed. The trend will continue throughout the project period and that by December 2003, our partner organizations will have completed 5,000 community physical infrastructure (CPI) schemes for 7,000 communities benefiting nearly 350,000 households and approximately 2.5 million people. “We will have provided loans to 518,666 people,” he added.

He said focus has now been shifted to Sindh and Balochistan after sufficiently covering NWFP and Punjab. “The need for poverty alleviation in Sindh and Balochistan is high,” he opined. The PPAF had contributed significantly to mitigate affects of drought in Sindh and Balochistan through its interventions, especially CPI, he said.

He said that PPAF, being the biggest fund of its kind in the country, is funding some 35 NGOs and community-based organisations and private institutions located in all four provinces, Azad Kashmir and northern areas.

The PPAF works with NGOs and private sector institutions to achieve its objectives which are provision of micro-credit, community physical infrastructure and human and institutional development.

More than 50 per cent of PPAF projects included water projects for drinking and irrigation purposes. Others included construction of link roads, bridges, culverts, sanitation and flood control. Fund selects projects on the basis of its four district Indexes which included poverty, population.