PESHAWAR: Mission Director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for Pakistan Kate Somvongsiri on Thursday said the premier international development agency would soon launch a $20 million Education Resilience Activity (ERA) in Pakistan, including the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

“It’s going to be a nationwide project with KP being one of the focused areas,” Ms Somvongsiri told reporters at the US Consulate here.

She said the ERA would focus on improving people’s access to education and the quality of education policies, while the resilience part includes climate change.

“We are not building schools and will rather offer technical assistance to people building schools to make them climate resilient,” she said.

The USAID mission director said that the schools built by the USAID were among some of the structures that stood intact during past floods.

Mission director says initiative to focus on underserved children

She added that the activity was for the education of girls and children with disabilities, the underserved groups in Pakistan.

“We are excited about the launch of this activity soon,” she said.

Ms Somvongsiri said there were many areas of alignment between the USAID and KP government like academic development, skill building, energy, power, and agriculture.

She said Wednesday’s donor conference was a good initiative on part of the new government in the province.

“Since 2009, USAID has provided over $1 billion in assistance to the province. It’s in grants, unlike loans provided by other organisations. It means that the USAID provides grants for the projects and does not expect repayments,” she said.

The USAID mission director said currently, 26 USAID projects were under way in the province in very diverse areas like academic development, women’s development, education, climate change, and energy.

She added that the agency had built a lot of infrastructure, especially in the power sector.

Ms Somvongsiri said USAID had supported the Gomal Zam Dam, Tarbla, and other energy projects.

“We have provided 253 megawatts of electricity, mostly hydel, clean, and affordable energy to the province,” she said.

The mission director said that at the national level, USAID had helped add 4000 megawatts of energy to the national grid, which was all clean and affordable energy.

She said the agency also helped with the execution of the Golen Gol project.

Regarding the road infrastructure, Ms Somvongsiri said that the agency had helped build over 1300 kilometres of roads, bridges, link roads, and tunnels in the province.

“These roads are a way to livelihood and connectivity to the outside world, where the economic potential lies,” she said.

She said education and health were priority areas of USAID.

“We helped build 29 new schools and rehabilitated over 1,000 others affected by the conflict and natural disasters in the province. We are also working with the government to introduce the private public partnership mode for the improvement of education in the province,” she said.

The mission director said USAID wasn’t just building infrastructure but also ensuring the provision of quality education to people as well.

She said in the higher education sector, the agency extended help to eight universities, including the modern centre for energy at the University of Engineering and Technology, Peshawar.

“We have also built the faculty of education in four universities, including Gomal University, the University of Peshawar, Hazara University, and the University of Malakand,” she said, revealing the provision of over 1,000 merit- and need-based scholarships to students from across the province.

Published in Dawn, April 19th, 2024