PESHAWAR, Oct 12: International aid agencies and foreign consultants are assisting the government in framing a $2 billion development plan for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, official sources said.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s NWFP office, United States Agency for International Development and the Department for International Development (DFID) of the United Kingdom are engaged in putting together the programme, which will be implemented in nine years.

According to sources involved in preparation of the plan, the federal government, anticipating foreign financial assistance for development of the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, intends to embark upon a wholesome development strategy aiming at economic development and poverty alleviation to achieve its main objective of improving the security situation in Fata.

“A lot of preparatory work is being done at the IUCN’s local office for formulating the strategy envisaging separate plans for health, education, infrastructure development, economic development, etc,” said a source privy to the process of preparing the plan.

A hint about launching the development plan to be implemented by 2015 had also been given by NWFP Governor Ali Mohammad Jan Orakzai during a press conference here on Sept 8 in which he had issued details of the government’s peace deal signed on Sept 9 with Utmanzai tribesmen and militants linked with Afghanistan’s Taliban to improve the security situation in the troubled North Waziristan Agency.

The plan, according to sources, make part of Islamabad’s broader strategy aiming to curb militancy and religious extremism in Fata by improving socio-economic indicators through economic uplift of the area.

In this respect, Rs120 billion will be invested in public sector development schemes in Fata over a period of nine years to improve health and education sectors, augment infrastructure, including network of roads, and water supply and sanitation.

The plan, to be undertaken by the recently-established Fata Development Authority, envisages substantial increase in Fata’s annual development outlay which as per the current year’s federal government’s budget stands at over Rs6.2 billion.

Officials said the USAID and the DFID were assisting the government in framing separate strategies for education and health sectors, whereas, a small and medium enterprise development authority had also been set up to prepare a strategy for economic development of the tribal areas.

Sources said teams of experts engaged in preparing multi-sectoral development strategies had paid visits to tribal agencies and Frontier Regions making part of Fata, and held meetings with officials to prepare their respective sectoral plans for their incorporation into the main strategy.

The first draft of the plan, said the sources, would be discussed by a larger group during a consultative workshop in Peshawar scheduled for the first week of November.

In the light of recommendations by working groups to be formed at the workshop, fine tuning of the overall development strategy would be done following which the same would be referred to the president for approval.

“The government seems to be quite in haste to formulate the strategy and launch it at the earliest,” said an official.