March 31, 2007	Saturday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 11, 1428

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ISLAMABAD, March 30: The third Millennium Development Goals report, which aims at preparing aggressive and proactive policies to advance social economic, political and cultural causes of people, was launched here on Friday.

Speaking on the occasion, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said Pakistan was committed to achieving Millennium Development Goals.

He claimed success in different sectors in the last couple of years, especially in poverty alleviation and improvement of health and educational facilities.

The focus of the MDGs report, he said, would be on improving social indicators in the shortest possible time.

The prime minister claimed that poverty had been reduced by 10 per cent but there was no room for complacency and extra measures would be taken to achieve the goals by 2015.

The MDGs report calls for allocating more funds to achieve the goals through proper implementation.

Mr Aziz urged provincial and district governments to play their role in implementing programmes envisaged in the MDGs to improve the life of the people.

He said Pakistan had made progress in all indicators set by the United Nations for human development but there was still a need for special efforts to achieve the objectives with the help of civil society.

“The government takes human development indicators seriously and is making all-out efforts to ensure equitable distribution of resources with a view to accelerating and sustaining the economic growth,” the prime minister said.

About women’s empowerment, he said that besides legislation to ensure empowerment of women and give them equal status, the government had also increased the job quota for women.

The report also focuses on awareness, prevention and treatment programmes to control HIV/Aids, malaria, hepatitis, tuberculosis and other diseases, clean environment, a population welfare programme to bring down the population growth rate, improving health and education facilities, devolution programme and empowering people at the grassroots level.

Mr Aziz expressed the confidence that the local level empowerment, rising awareness and financial autonomy would go a long way in achieving MDGs.