Head of
Economic Growth, Ms. Patricia Seex and Team Leader Economic Inclusion and
Poverty, Mr. Mazhar Siraj from DFID called on Secretary BISP Mr. Omar Hamid
Khan today at BISP Secretariat to share brief findings of recently concluded
Review Mission and to discuss the issues of mutual collaboration between DFID
and BISP.
DFID is the
development partner of BISP. Under the first tranche of Pakistan National Cash
Transfers Programme (PNCTP), DFID has provided up to £180 million grant and £21
million in technical assistance to BISP from 2012 to 2016 against the set of 18
Disbursement Linked Indicators (DLIs) which have been successfully achieved by
BISP meeting all the targets in due course of time. DFID supported two flagship
programmes in the first tranche: the Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT)
programme and the Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) programme for education.
For the
second tranche, DFID has provided 11 DLIs in total amounting to GBP £ 98.4
million to be achieved by March 2021. These DLIs pertain to usage of new
National Socio Economic Registry (NSER) data for UCT disbursements, building
and availability of dashboard for stakeholders to access NSER data,
implementation of Biometric Verification System (BVS), capacity building of
Tehsil offices, expansion of Waseela-e-Taleem and increasing the numbers of
BISP Beneficiary Committees (BBCs) in Union Councils.
DFID Team,
during the meeting, put forth some suggestions for future endeavors and
expressed great satisfaction over the performance of BISP in the wake of
achieved targets. Secretary BISP urged them to provide technical and financial
assistance in the design and implementation of newly conceived initiative of
‘BISP Endowment Fund’ under which BISP plans to provide assistance to its most
vulnerable beneficiaries in the form of dowry, emergency medical support and
trainings for skill development and entrepreneurship. DFID Team appreciated the
initiative of ‘BISP Endowment Fund’ and ensured their full support in its
design and implementation.
It was also
discussed in the meeting that BISP is in the process of finalizing a graduation
model, consisting of short and long term approaches, which would help
beneficiaries to graduate out of poverty. DFID Team was also of the view that
BISP needs to have a graduation framework and affirmed their support in this
regard.
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