Country Director (CD) United Nations Development Program Ignacio Artaza called on Secretary Benazir Income Support Program (BISP). Omar Hamid Khan Secretary BISP, has briefed the UNDP’s country head in detail about the National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER), Technology based payments, CCT for Primary Education, Complementary Initiatives, Graduation Program, BISP Endowment Fund and other key partnerships of BISP including MIT, Harvard and LSE for recently launched Graduation Model. Discussing further, BISP working relationship with UNDP following proposals were tabled; 1) UNDP from its overall envelop of $250 million allocated under the One Program (OP-II) may support BISP for its complementary initiatives. Social mobilization for crisis prevention and post disaster recovery can be the areas of common interest. 2) UNDP may support BISP in providing financial / technical assistance for launching / up-scaling the cash transfers conditional to nutrition and immunization. Immunization coverage in Pakistan has stagnated. 3) UNDP support can help BISP to address supply side barriers that limit access of vulnerable groups to basic social and productive services. Country Director appreciated the industrious effort being put in by the BISP to facilitate the poorest of the poor societal segment. Welcoming the proposals, he shared the priority working areas of UNDP in Pakistan includes; 1) Governance & Rule of Law 2) Climate change related financial support 3) community resilience and Infrastructure support at grass-roots level 4) research and policy interventions. He particularly showed interest in BISP Endowment Fund (BEF), and agreed to identify areas for the mutual cooperation to work for the betterment of the community at large.
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