PESHAWAR, May 24: The NWFP health department in collaboration with the World Health Organization is launching a basic development need (BDN) project in five districts of the province. “The project, aimed at the empowerment of women and community participation in local development, is being carried out after its success in Nowshera district where the WHO is providing more than Rs5million per annum,” said Dr Mohammad Saeed Akbar Khan, WHO Operation Medical Officer for NWFP and Fata.

The NWFP Health Department had also approved a PC-1 for the five districts — Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu, Upper Dir, Buner and Battagram — to be completed over a period of three years.

An amount of Rs12.5 million would be spent on the projects of which the government would provide Rs7.5million, while the rest has been pledged by the WHO.

The BDN programme was started in 1995 in Nowshera where village development committees (VDCs) were established in 17 union councils. The WHO, besides financial help, also provided technical support to the VDCs in identifying and implementation of the projects, mostly aimed at the empowerment of women development at the community level.

Dr Khan said that strategies would be adopted in the selected districts in conformity with socially acceptable norms of the respective districts. Like Nowshera and Peshawar, computer centres would be established in the district to build the capacity of the women.

He said that more focus would be laid on the development of social sectors, such as education, health and skill development of women, and added that a conducive atmosphere required for the development would be created and basic primary education would be provided and embroidery centres would be established in the districts.

Centres would be set up in the five districts on the pattern of Nowshera district where 13 vocational training centres had been established for women, and added that the WHO had good experience of BDN projects in 22 countries, seven of which were in the region itself, and wanted to expand it to more districts of the province in the near future.

WHO’s official said that they had trained 44 women health activists who worked as volunteers in Nowshera district.

He said that these volunteers visited houses, maintained a growth monitoring chart and weighed the children. In case of low weight, which is an indicator of many diseases, the children were referred to local health centres for further treatment.

Dr Khan said that BDN’s activities also included providing loans, ranging from Rs20,000 to Rs30,000, to the women to buy buffaloes or establish honey-bee or poultry farms for their income generation. This has been very popular among the women, he said, and added that owing to the success of the programme, the WHO was now offering loan at two per cent interest. The money is returned to the Community Development Fund in instalments, which is again given to other women, he said.

He said that similar strategies would be adopted in these five districts to involve the women in mainstream social and educational activities and reduce poverty at the grass-roots level.

He said that a US-based humanitarian organization, Global Fund, had given $2 million to the World Health Organization (WHO) for stepping up its efforts to eradicate tuberculosis and malaria from Pakistan, and added that the grant would be spent through BDN programmes in seven districts — Nowshera and Peshawar in the NWFP, Multan and Kasur in Punjab, Dadu in Sindh, Mastoon in Balochistan and the urban belt of Muzaffarabad in Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

He said that the provincial malaria and TB control programmes would also get a boost in Peshawar and Nowshera.