PESHAWAR, Sept 2: The NWFP government is devising a development strategy aimed at providing a medium-term framework for planning and execution of uplift initiatives in the province.

The NWFP Comprehensive Development Strategy (CDS) is being chalked out by a seven-member working group nominated by the provincial government.

The United Kingdom’s Department for International Development is providing financial and technical support for the exercise, an official told Dawn here on Tuesday.The proposed strategy, said the official, would work as a policy document as well as a structural plan to identify long-term goals the government wanted to achieve through it in the social sector.

The broader objectives of the CDS are: to adopt a framework for collective action for development of the province at the society level; to promote transparent and evidence-based public decisions and actions; to ensure participatory development approach; and to stimulate capacity improvements of the public sector.

The official said the working group was reviewing existing practices in the development cycle and would formulate a framework for uplift planning, financing, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.

The working group has divided the assignment in two stages: the first phase of the plan will be completed at a stakeholders’ conference by next month, and the second phase of detailed plans and programme will be completed by March next year.

The NWFP government will present the CDS at the second NWFP Development Forum next year to attract support from international lending and donor agencies. The first forum was conducted in 2005 by the then provincial government of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal.

Since the geopolitical situation of the Frontier province in the wake of growing militancy and the fall-out of the US-led war on terror needed macro-level interventions, the official said the CDS would also be presented at the forthcoming Pakistan Development Forum to mobilise resources from international entities for the plan.

Critics in the official circles term preparation of the CDS a futile exercise, saying the government already has multiple development strategies and plans, but the problem is their implementation.

A senior official in the planning and development department, however, defended the initiative, adding the major difference of past and proposed plans was that the previous plans identified only the potentials of growth and they did not give a coherent approach for implementation.

He said the province had been seeking donors’ help, but in turn it had nothing available in writing that could identify real needs of people.

“If today the government intends to achieve universal healthcare or education for all, it doesn’t have an integrated approach. The CDS, however, will solve this problem,” the official said.