SUKKUR, Nov 29: Minister of State and National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) Chairman Dr. Naseem Ashraf has stressed the need for innovative public-private partnership to improve the lot of common man and deal with the challenges of human development especially in remote rural areas of the country.

The minister said while addressing meetings with NCHD office-bearers in the remote areas of the district that the commission was committed to helping the ministries of education and health in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), as agreed by the government of Pakistan with the United Nations, said an official handout issued on Wednesday.

The commission was committed to promoting literacy and spearheading the education and health initiatives not only to provide relief to people but also to narrow the gap between the haves and the have-nots, he said.

Mr Ashraf said that the focus of NCHD’s efforts was on mainstreaming people, especially the marginalised sections, empowering common man at the grassroots level as well as empowering women. The government was making efforts for rehabilitating the underprivileged communities economically through the development of education and health sectors in different districts, he said.

He underlined the importance of education and said it was a key to the country’s prosperity. Pakistan was blessed with large reservoirs of natural resources but it faced an acute shortage of human resource development institutions, he added.

The present government, he said, was employing all means to develop human resources through the NCHD, which was now working in more than 100 districts through its Universal Primary Education (UPE) and literacy projects.