KARACHI: The challenges that Pakistan faces are grave: power crisis, earthquakes, floods, insecurity, terrorism, to name but a few. But “this does not deter the United States to invest in the country”, said US Agency for International Development’s mission director on Saturday.

Talking to Dawn on the sidelines of an entrepreneurs conference organised by MIT Enterprise Forum (MITEF)’s Pakistan chapter, John Groarke said the current US civilian-assistance programme is valued at more than $5 billion. This makes it the agency’s second-largest overseas mission after Afghanistan.

Under the programme, which focuses primarily on developing “a stable, secure and tolerant Pakistan with a vibrant economy”, USAID has invested $34 million in training to enhance the capacity of future Pakistani professionals. “We are focusing on education, health, energy and governance,” he said.

The programme will train more than 6,000 Pakistanis by May 2017.

The event, attended by participants from USAID, foreign dignitaries, investors, entrepreneurs, senior academicians and students, saw the next generation of Pakistan’s business leaders join the eighth Business Acceleration Programme (BAP-2015) finals.

The BAP is aimed at helping IT, telecom and new media companies operating in Pakistan to accelerate their business to the next level, to improve the chances of success for women led start-ups and to assist researchers take the path of commercialisation.

Some of the BAP-2015 finalists include doctHERs, Khanz, e-novatRz, Biteze and Emperor’s Bazaar.

“Young people should be creating jobs. It’s all very exciting and inspirational to see women entrepreneurs,” Mr Groarke said.

Asked how his experience in Pakistan was compared to his previous stints in Haiti, Morocco and Afghanistan, the USAID mission director said Pakistanis were a resilient breed given the challenges the country faces.

“Pakistan has a lot of potential, and its educated people understand the underlying problems. All they need is assistance of from donors.”

Published in Dawn, November 15th, 2015

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