ISLAMABAD, Feb 1: The World Food Programme (WFP) will provide $26.45 million to Pakistan over a period of two years as part of its new country programme.

WFP Executive Director Catherine Bertini stated, speaking at a press conference here on Friday, that the programme focussed on welfare of women and girls in the poorest districts.

She said that in 2002 the UN food agency had planned to help 165,000 girls go to school, support health services for 155,000 women and feed 181,000 Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

The executive director, who arrived in Pakistan on late Thursday evening from Kabul, met Federal Minister for Agriculture Khair Muhammad Junejo and Minister for SAFRON Abbas Sarfaraz Khan on Friday.

WFP Spokesperson Khalid Mansour said she would also meet President Gen Musharraf on Saturday.

About her meetings with Pakistani officials, Ms Bertini told newsmen that issues about 350,000 drought victims in Sindh and Balochistan, details of the new country programme and WFP aid for refugees based in Pakistan were discussed.

She said, under the programme aid was aimed at promoting primary education for girls in rural areas and increasing attendance rates in selected rural primary schools of Pakistan.

She said the WFP would use food aid as an incentive to encourage poor families to send their girls to school instead of keeping them at home usually to do the household chores. Each girl would be given a four litre tin of edible oil if she attended school for 20 days in a month, she said.

This programme would target 80,000 girls already enrolled in 3,300 selected schools over 30 months to prevent their dropping out of school. An additional 184,000 girls may enrol in schools and receive the same ration of oil in this time.

Ms Bertini said WFP’s Safe Motherhood project would work with the provincial health departments to promote the attendance of poor pregnant mothers at rural health centres by giving four litre tins of vegetable oil at critical stages during pregnancy and after birth.

The plan would benefit 155,000 women annually through 500 health centres in 19 districts of the country, she said adding, about 23,000 women and their families might benefit every year.

Ms Bertini said, based on consultations with the UNHCR an estimated 288,000 Afghan refugees would continue receiving the much needed food assistance at the old camps as well as other newly-established camps in the NWFP and Balochistan.

The WFP would use helicopters to deliver food aid in the inaccessible areas of Afghanistan facing food scarcity, she said.

In reply to a question about infested Indian wheat, the WFP executive director said the Indian government made a generous offer but it was being negotiated again.

WFP envoy for the executive director, Ramiro Lopez Da Silva, said India had a surplus of 25 to 30 million tones of wheat.

The WFP had negotiated with New Delhi and 1 million tones of wheat procured from India would first be processed into flour and then transported to Afghanistan. Through processing into flour, the wheat would be germ free, he said.

The food agency has also planned to undertake the implementation of an $6 million emergency operation beginning in April for a period of five months in the seven districts of Balochistan and Sindh. It includes a food cost of $2.98 million.

Ms Bertini during her stay in Pakistan would visit the refugee camps and schools in the NWFP where the UN food agency was working with the government to increase the enrolment and retention of girls in primary schools, WFP spokesman said.