ISLAMABAD: The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) will make an investment of $82 million in Pakistan to improve livelihoods, living conditions and income-generating capacity for 320,000 poor rural households in the country.

IFAD will initiate the ‘National Poverty Graduation Programme’ covering 17 districts, with a focus on the ‘ultra-poor’ segment of the population residing in rural areas.

The programme will aim to provide a combination of safety nets and sustainable livelihood opportunities. The project’s financial agreement for graduation programme was signed in Rome, on Tuesday, by IFAD Vice-President, Michel Mordasini and Pakistan’s Ambassador to Italy, Nadeem Riyaz.

Beneficiaries will receive support through skills development, business literacy training and access to credit. The programme will also help to promote economic empowerment by offering men and women equal access to participating in profitable economic activities.

The government is struggling to have an effective poverty graduation strategy that would lessen the current load of 5.4m BISP beneficiaries with over $1.2bn expenditure a year — so far with no real success.

The theory of change in the new programme is that with the right kind of responsive and flexible support a number of ultra poor families can be graduated to the next level of wellbeing where they have opportunities to link up with other sources of assistance including microfinance.

The total cost of the programme is $149.8m, of which, IFAD is providing $82.6m. The programme is aligned with Pakistan’s policies on poverty reduction and social protection, notably with the Government’s Vision 2025 — committing to halve poverty by 2025.

The graduation programme is designed to catalyse change at the grassroots to pull people out of poverty, building largely upon BISP beneficiaries and leveraging Prime Minister Interest Free Loan scheme to build a smooth ‘seamless service’ where the poorest can move from consumption support to asset transfers to interest free loans to microcredit.

PPAF works on multi-dimensional aspects of poverty, addressing economic, social and institutional aspects which are reflected in the poverty graduation programme design and in the composition of the Poverty Score Card.

“The programme includes social mobilisation, livelihood development and financial inclusion components. It combines support for immediate needs with a long-term plan, shifting households out of extreme poverty by providing access to a package of assets that include social services, vocational training and interest-free loans,” said IFAD Country Programme Manager, Hubert Boirard.

Based on the government’s national poverty scorecard, 30pc of the total population (59m people) have been defined as poor and 61pc of the population lives in rural areas where income levels are low and employment opportunities are limited.

IFAD has financed 27 rural development programmes and projects in Pakistan since 1978, with a total IFAD investment of $730m or $2.51bn when co-funding from the Pakistan government and others are included.

These projects have directly benefitted more than 2.4m rural households — approximately 17m people.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2017