Poverty Alleviation Fund mulls separate oversight agency
KATHMANDU, FEB 11 -
Poverty Alleviation Fund (PAF), a government agency working on poverty alleviation, is planning to form a separate coordinating team named ‘Anti-poverty Champions’ that will include experts from different sectors.The proposed oversight agency is expected to effectively coordinate the entire poverty alleviation programmes run by the PAF across the country.
On Friday, the PAF initiated talks with experts from various sectors to develop an effective poverty alleviation mechanism at the national level. The experts include former bureaucrats, development planners, economists, academicians, sociologist and other members of the civil society.
According to the PAF, the talks focused on the key constraints— from institutional to policy and legal to managerial area.
PAF Vice Chairperson Janak Raj Joshi said the autonomous body would finalise the members of the team along with its structure in the next meeting. According to him, the group will provide regular feedbacks to the PAF on its regular function and also work as a facilitator while dealing with other stakeholders.
Highlighting the need for promoting the PAF—from a fund administrator to an oversight agency on poverty alleviation—Joshi said they would give continuity to the best practices of the organisation. “Besides being a programme, it is a development model and concept which is delivering results at the grass root level,” said Joshi.
At an interaction programme, the participants also stressed on the need for an oversight agency that coordinates all poverty alleviation programmes. They also called for strategies to participate the poor in the fight against poverty.
Pushkar Bachracharya, former member of the National Planning Commission, said more investment was needed in agriculture, micro enterprises, infrastructure and human resource development for poverty alleviation.
Professor Nobel Kishor Rai stressed on the need for huge investment in education. “Remittance earning is only the temporary solution to poverty,” said Rai.
PAF has so far invested in 17,537 community organisations. PAF Executive Director Raj Babu Shrestha said the programme covered 40 percent of the total number of village development committees across the country.
Source: Kantipur
