HYDERABAD, March 16: A three-year project launched under the USAID aims at assisting the district government and community-based organisations (CBOs) in capacity building and providing training to the government functionaries.

Talking to journalists at the Hyderabad Press Club on Friday, local government specialist Asif Abbasi and public relations manager district network, Ms Saira Parvez said that the project had been launched at a total cost of US $26 million.

They said the basic objective of the programme aimed to improve the district management and for which initially six districts had been selected for the programme.

These included, Sialkot and Khanewal in Punjab, Dadu and Sukkur in Sindh, Lasbela in Balochistan and Mansehra in NWFP.

They said this programme would assist and advise the district governments on financial management, development of skills and observance of financial rules.

They said help would also be extended to the district government for exploring new avenues of revenue with training in auditing.