October 05, 2007	Friday	Ramazan 22, 1428

PESHAWAR, Oct 4: The NWFP government has engaged the World Bank for securing credit to finance its ongoing reform plan in the 2007-08 financial year, officials said.

Officials at the finance department told Dawn that the NWFP government had agreed to continue with the reform process, initiated some seven years ago by a non-elected set-up, in the next financial year.

The government had expressed interest in long-term support from the World Bank to finance the reform plan in talks held between a high-level mission of the lending agency and the local authorities last month.

The bank mission that was in the provincial capital mainly to review earlier reform programmes had explained to the government that the country assistance strategy for Pakistan envisaged continuing financial assistance for all parts of the country.

It said that challenges in human development and poverty in the NWFP and performance of the NWFP reform programme over the past five years made it a priority candidate for sustainable long-term support from the bank.

It may be mentioned that the NWFP government is pursuing second phase of the three-year reform agenda that would conclude in 2007-08.

The World Bank had provided $130 million for the current financial year as development policy credit whereas the government would need financial assistance for the next fiscal year to undertake future steps, the officials explained.

They said the mission had clarified that the performance of the NWFP would be assessed more favourably if all targets of the reform programme, sponsored by the World Bank through Development Policy Credit (DPC), were to be achieved.

The mission, however, was worried about the weak performance of several key health targets, the officials added.