PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak on Monday said there were significant risks associated with peace and security for the provincial government during the current year due to developments in Afghanistan.
“Concrete steps against corruption and the maximum transparency in the government machinery have started yielding fruit as it besides the people of this province, has also restored the confidence of international community and donor agencies in the development policies of PTI-led coalition government in the province,” he said during the strategic dialogue (donor conference) on development partnership framed by the provincial government for donor countries and agencies in Islamabad, says a handout issued in Peshawar.
The chief minister said he was confident that the collective wisdom backed by technical expertise of the development partners, civil society, sustained political will and donors’ commitment would provide necessary inputs for achieving successful results under the eight outcomes of Strategic Development Partnership Framework (SPDF).
He said his government would achieve the outcomes vis-à-vis peace building and rule of law, economic growth and job creation, basic health, elementary and secondary education with additional focus on skills and technical education, gender equality, enhancing fiscal space, transparency and accountability and improved citizen partnership.
“Development is impossible without peace,” he said.
On the occasion, finance minister Sirajul Haq, health and agriculture minister Shahram Khan Tarakai, provincial chief secretary Shahzad Arbab and additional chief secretary Khalid Pervez highlighted development strategies of the provincial government, while the missions heads, country directors and representatives of 22 donor agencies, including World Bank, Asian Development Bank , DFID, USAID, GIZ, KSW, Swiss Development Cooperation, UNDP, JICA, AUS AID, EU, Norway, Canada and Netherlands, appreciated the policies of change and transparency in public sector institutions and the provincial government’s anti-corruption measures and development partnership with donor agencies.
They assured the provincial government of full support and assistance in its human development efforts.
They praised the chief minister for reforms and good governance and said the provincial government had wisely switched its policies and priorities from material development to human welfare.
The chief minister while thanking donor agencies for generous support and assurances in furthering developmental strategies of his government said efforts were underway to revamp local police and security forces besides providing them with the latest equipment to address security risks.
“We welcome the inputs and assistance of our development partners to augment our efforts in financial challenges related to peace and security in our neighborhood. I am pleased to note that the development partners are cognisant of these challenges and have debated their cause-and-effect relationship at length,” he said.These strategies, he said, would be refined during the deliberations with the sectoral experts and completed with clear milestones and targets with robust monitoring mechanisms to be put in place to ensure results, which both the donors and the government have agreed as the key deliverable of the Strategic Dialogue.
The chief minister said his government has initiated an ambitious agenda of transformational development whose key elements included improvement in governance and service delivery through reforms, accountability/ transparency and bringing citizens closer to the state, economic development by harnessing comparative advantage of the provincial natural resources, institutional strengthening for better utilisation of resources, concerted efforts to enhance government-donors coordination.
“The pivotal element of government-donors coordination has been strategised through the pioneering Strategic Dialogue which commenced on October 2 last year when the provincial government and its key development partners, agreed to adopt the Strategic Development Partnership Framework or SPDF, and is based on the democratic principle of mutual accountability,” he said.
Mr Khattak asked the mission heads and country directors of donor agencies to support him as head of the provincial government and honour promises as he had strong interest in the robust execution of the SDPF and speedy development of the province aimed at ameliorating lot of its people specially the poor.
He however expressed satisfaction with the performance of his government.