PESHAWAR, Nov 13: The NWFP government's poverty reduction strategy paper (PRSP) seeks poverty alleviation through economic growth by promoting sustainable development , bringing about reforms to improve services delivery system in important sectors and enhance efficiency of the provincial public sector institutions, official sources said.

The provincial PRSP, prepared in line with the federal government's directives to all federating units, was approved by the NWFP cabinet recently, official circles said.

Efforts to put in place an independent poverty reduction strategy for the province were started more than two years ago. The PRSP asks for pursuing a five-pronged strategy to achieve desired results for which, the sources said, the province would need to arrange substantial amount of funds in the years to come.

The five main areas on which the PRSP focuses for poverty alleviation include: governance reforms to put in place an efficient, accountable and service oriented civil service; reforms to improve service delivery system in key sectors, fiscal and financial management reforms; putting in place a medium-term budgetary framework (MTBF) to improve resource mobilization and enhance effectiveness of public sector expenditures; promote sustainable private sector development to accelerate economic growth; and enhance provincial government's capability to effectively manage crisis situations.

While identifying risks to the success of the overall strategy, it contains that backsliding on the key fiscal and financial steps committed to by the NWFP government in 2001 as part of the conditionality for the World Bank's structural adjustment credit could undermine the success of the PRSP.

Similarly, it points out that lack of smooth functioning of the local governments, lack of ownership of the PRSP on the part of district government, and the absence of consensus among the district governments' elected representatives and officials could also make difficult to achieve goals set under the PRSP.

Making the 1998-99 census as the baseline the provincial PRSP claims that the NWFP is the poorest among the federating units and involves incidence of poverty much higher than other provinces and even substantially higher than that for the country.

It presents a bleak picture of social sectors and describes the NWFP with the highest ratio of gender disparities when compared with other provinces of the country.

"The NWFP faces difficult challenges due to its geography, it is the poorest province, has low social indicators and highest ratio of gender disparity," the PRSP said, adding: "The poor have relatively low access to safe drinking water and sanitation facilities and in terms of safe water and drainage both in urban and rural sectors alike fare significantly worse than the country as a whole."

The prime objective of the strategy is to reduce poverty through "efforts to restore governance" and promote respect for rule of law, enhance effectiveness of public expenditure, particularly in social sectors, and 're-establish' the integrity of state institutions and their accountability to the public.

It envisages strengthening and improvement of the functioning of local governments as one of its integral parts to achieve the desired result of improving delivery of social services and enhance efficiency of public sector institutions.

For this purpose, it asks for imparting training to public sector employees to improve their skills and enhance proficiency of institutions to help local governments work on modern lines in order to enable them function as sustainable entities with proactive planning for the development and promotion of all available resources at the district-level.

Besides, it asks for lending support to district governments by imparting training to staff so that they could prepare business plans and explore the possibilities of bringing natural resources under sustainable use.

Asking for strengthening the office of the district planning officer(s) - in terms of human resource development and by providing them modern equipment - the strategy envisages a new role for the office to act as a business development and support units to facilitate private sector in making investment in appropriate businesses.

It asks for establishing a linkage between the district-based units and public sector organizations like Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority, Agriculture Development Bank and Khushali Bank to help private sector in arranging capital for their businesses.

It seeks to develop and strengthen horticulture sector and vegetable farming, processing and marketing of foods, development of timber and non-timber forest products and asks for proper exploitation of NWFP's natural resources in the mineral and gems stone sectors by developing them on modern business lines.

It asks for adhering to NWFP government's commitments with the World Bank which is providing budgetary support to the province under its structural adjustment credit.