The National Assembly of Pakistan under the leadership of Speaker National Assembly Asad Qaiser organized the 5th Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Asia Regional Conference, 2019 currently taking place in Islamabad from July 29 – August 2, 2019. The Conference was formally inaugurated today with the Speech of Honorable Speaker AsadQaiser and President of Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Dr. ArifAlvi. The first Plenary of this Conference aimed at discussing the Challenges for Poverty Eradication in South Asia. It was a detailed session which highlighted the causes due to which Poverty is on the rise in South Asian region. Further, the session reviewed the importance of Social Safety Nets, from Gramen Model to SamurdhiProgramme and BISP. The session discussed the significance of existing International Financial Organizations in the region and how they could help and support the Governments of the region in Poverty Alleviation Programmes. Miss Sania Nishtar presented an enlightening presentation which stated that 24.3% of the total population is living without enough money to satisfy basic needs, 38.8% suffer from deprivation. Furthermore she talked about the Government’s Poverty Eradication - EhsaasProgramme and how it aims to pull people out of Poverty. Although there is a downfall in the number of stunting but still Pakistan has a long way to go. The agenda of this session was to highlight the important role of Parliamentarians in partnering and implementing poverty reduction strategies extracted from the global best practices. It was concluded that to eradicate poverty from the region all countries would have to come together for a Joint Action against poverty and we could only move ahead of it, if there’s mutual support and assistance. Eradicating poverty would also help us achieve the SDGs 2030 Agenda. *****
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