ISLAMABAD, Jan 11: The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID) will contribute one million pound ($2 million) to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-administered “Building enabling governance and institutions for earthquake response (Beginer)” project for restoring local government capacity across the quake-devastated areas.

DFID and UNDP would ink an agreement to this effect on Friday (today).

Large numbers of government buildings were destroyed when the earthquake rocked NWFP and Azad Kashmir crippling administration infrastructure in an area already poorly resourced.

The Beginer project was launched in August 2006 mainly from UNDP’s core resources with a total available budget of $4.4 million.

The project aims at enabling local government institutions to function again quickly and have technical capacities to plan and implement disaster response activities through a transparent, equitable and participatory process.

The project is also building capacity of local government officials, elected representatives and civil society through district level workshops on disaster management and disaster risk reduction.

The additional funds from DFID will assist in meeting a funding gap and expanding the project’s activities across Abbottabad, Kohistan and Shangla districts in NWFP.

In a statement UNDP said, “This support has arrived at the right time to support local government departments which were most crucial to reconstruction and rehabilitation process besides assisting in better service delivery in the earthquake affected region.”

Officials say the project would not only restore government infrastructure in the affected area but would also help improve working conditions and promote a change in culture and greater efficiency.

The project also envisages restoration of official data lost in the quake.