ISLAMABAD, Sept 8: The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) and the World Food Programme (WFP) will contribute about $27 million to accelerate girls' enrolment in primary schools in Pakistan.
Under an agreement signed here on Wednesday between the two bodies, the WFP would be contributing $18.1 million and Unicef $8.9 million to accelerate girls' enrolment in 1,068 primary schools in nine districts of the country, a press release said.
WFP's German Valdiv and Unicef representative Omar Abdi signed the agreement. UN resident coordinator Onder Yucer was also present. Mr Yucer said the signing of the agreement on the International Day of Literacy had a special significance for all UN agencies and partners.
"It forges us together to translate United Nations development assistance framework and the millennium development goals into indicators of social development."
Highlighting the significance of the agreement, the WFP representative said: "A girl with school is a girl with future. The WFP is committed to providing this opportunity to help girls in rural areas realize this dream."
Collaboration between stakeholders is a step towards ensuring thousands of girls completing quality education, said the Unicef representative while stressing on the access to quality education as basic right of all children.
As an incentive, the WFP would provide a four-litre can of edible oil to each of the primary school girls and teachers for a minimum of 20 to 22 days attendance respectively to increase enrolment and reduce dropouts and absenteeism.
Unicef will support teacher training and provide basic teaching and learning materials to improve the quality of education. The joint efforts are expected to result in enrolment, retention and completion of approximately 175,000 additional girls with benefits extended to an estimated 250,000 girls currently attending primary schools.
