LAHORE, Sept 16: The Manila-based Asian Development Bank (ADB) has proposed an assistance programme of about $1 billion for Punjab over the next four years.
This was stated by ADB director-general (South Asia) Yoshihiro Iwasaki in his keynote address at the inaugural session of the two-day Punjab Development Forum here on Tuesday.
Half of the assistance offered by ADB will be for the Punjab Resource Management Programme (PRMP), which is expected to be signed between the bank and the Punjab government next month. The programme includes support for wide-ranging fiscal and financial reforms, improved institutional arrangements for subsidies and pro-poor public services, administrative restructuring of the government and human resource development and creation of opportunities for growth and employment generation through private sector development.
The first $100 million tranche of the low-cost loan is expected to be released after the signing of agreement, and the Punjab government intends to use it to retire the expensive Cash Development Loans (CDL) that it obtained from the federal government over the years to finance its annual development programmes.
Mr Iwasaki said the remaining half-a-billion dollars were for projects like the Southern Punjab Basic Urban Services, Sustainable Livelihood in Barani Areas, Rawalpindi Environmental Improvement, Decentralized Social Services and the Punjab Local Justice Support.
He said Punjab would also benefit from several other ADB-assisted national-level projects and programmes during the next four years. “Along ADB’s support, other donors including the World Bank, the UN system and bilateral agencies are also providing significant amount of assistance to the province. I have no doubts that the Punjab government would ensure efficient utilization of the resources to achieve the goals articulated in the poverty reduction strategy.”
The ADB official listed the various challenges facing Punjab. They included eradication of poverty which had increased from 25 per cent in 1993 to 33 per cent in 1999, acceleration of growth and reduction of unemployment which stood at 8.5 per cent in 2000 as compared to the national average of 7.5 per cent, improving human development indicators and enhancing the fiscal space that has declined significantly over the years on account of a skewed public expenditure structure and erosion of revenue mobilization capacity.
However, he pointed out, Punjab also had some key factors working in its favour to address the challenges. These factors include the current reform mood, a dynamic private sector and an active civil society and nongovernmental organizations with the vision and capacity to ensure that the fruits of development reach the grassroots.
He said devolution was a major opportunity for creating a representative and participatory government at the local level, ensuring bottom-up accountability of the elected and administrative machinery and improving the public service delivery at the local level to promote social sector development and poverty reduction. At the same time, he said, devolution posed a challenge to the provincial government to reorient its role and become a catalyst and facilitator of development while delegating responsibilities of implementation to local governments as laid down under the devolution plan.