WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump’s daughter and adviser Ivanka Trump has expressed interest in setting up women development projects in Pakistan, the Ministry of Overseas Pakistanis and Human Resource Development announced on Saturday.

Ms Trump expressed this desire in a recent meeting with Minister of State for Overseas Pakistanis Syed Zulfiqar Abbas Bukhari in Washington.

Her husband Jared Kushner, who assists President Trump on foreign policy issues, also attended the meeting.

Mr Bukhari and Ms Trump agreed on increasing cooperation between Pakistan and the US on various fronts, the ministry said.

Earlier this month, Ms Trump spearheaded an initiative to give more financial power to women in the developing world.

Last week, the initiative announced its first batch of grants — $27 million for 14 projects in 22 countries — mostly in Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia.

At a recent group discussion in Washington, Ms Trump said that the economic empowerment of women “is smart” for nations that want development assistance and “critically important” for a country’s national security.

“If you look at the countries that have high levels of gender discrimination, 80 per cent of them have experienced armed conflict in the last 20 years,” she said.

According to his ministry’s press release, Mr Bukhari told Ms Trump that he was grateful for her interest in empowering Pakistani women. “We will create opportunities for human development through Pak-US cooperation,” he said.

“Relations between Pakistan and the United States are moving in the right direction and together we will work towards empowering our men and women,” the prime minister’s adviser added.

Various programmes for provision of jobs, vocational training and entrepreneurial opportunities to young Pakistanis, and economic development were discussed during the meeting.

It was not immediately clear when the meeting between Mr Bukhari and Ms Trump took place. Mr Bukhari had accompanied Prime Minister Imran Khan during his maiden visit to Washington earlier this week. The visit was seen as a means to rekindle Pakistan-US relations.

Taking to Twitter after the visit, the premier had appreciated Mr Trump for “his understanding of Pakistan’s point of view”, his wonderful way of putting the entire delegation at ease and for showing him around the White House.

Published in Dawn, July 28th, 2019