ISLAMABAD: The International Fund for Agricultural Development (Ifad) has approved a $120.15 million loan for a project aimed at improving income and reducing poverty and malnutrition in the rural areas of Gilgit-Baltistan.

The project also envisages generating employment and increasing income for at least 100,000 households.

The approval of the project has been communicated by Ifad to Minister for National Food Security and Research Sikandar Hayat Khan Bosan. The minister described the project as a significant economic initiative for GN region.

Ifad says that GB has been prioritised in view of its deprivation and higher incidence of poverty and the earlier success of the Ifad-funded Northern Areas Development Programme in improving the livelihood of the hard-to-reach poor in the province.

A survey by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (Fao) in 2014 registers only 26 per cent of the population in Gilgit-Baltistan as food-secure and 32pc as highly food insecure. The adult literacy rate is low, at 36pc, and the poverty incidence is 29pc as compared to 21pc for any part of the country.

The project will directly support the government’s second poverty reduction strategy paper, which includes agriculture as one of the nine core pillars and which places special emphasis on rural finance and on support for agriculture and small farmers, micro-enterprises and small businesses, rural infrastructure, women’s development and education as important means of poverty reduction.

Other beneficiaries will include small-scale processors, trading and export cooperatives, people engaged in value-adding activities, input suppliers and transporters.

An estimated 100,000 smallholder households, including women and youths, will benefit directly from value chain and irrigation development activities.

Published in Dawn June 13th, 2015

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