A helping hand: Sindh CM announces donor conference in December

USAID has made commendable interventions in health, education and municipal service depts in Sindh, says Murad

KARACHI: In order to provide the best services, particularly in the services sector, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has decided to convene a donor agencies conference in Islamabad in the second week of December.

This he said while talking to United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Assistant Administrator Gregory Hunger, who called on Shah at CM House on Friday, along with US Consul-General in Karachi Grace Shelton, USAID Mission Director Jerry Bisson and USAID Karachi Deputy Mission Director Oghale Oddo.

Health Minister Dr Sikandar Mandhro, Planning and Development Chairperson Mohammad Waseem and Principal Secretary to the CM Sohail Rajput also attended the meeting.

The chief minister said that USAID has made some commendable interventions in health, education and municipal services departments in Sindh but there were still various other areas where the provincial government needed support of donor agencies, referring to poverty alleviation, technical training and education, mother-child health, nutrition, uplift of fisheries communities, small farmers and other sectors.

Shah told Hunger that he was going to convene a donor conference in Islamabad in which donor agencies, ambassadors and private sector partners and potential partners would be invited. "Through different presentations, the provincial government will highlight the sectors and gaps where interventions of the participants will be required for next the 10 to 15 years," Shah said.

Talking about the gaps in different sectors, Shah said that with the assistance of donors, the nutrition programme was in progress in eight districts. "It [the nutrition programme] can be extended to other districts," he said.



He said that the developed countries have introduced latest technologies to increase yield. There is a dire need to train growers, particularly the small ones, he said.

Hunger appreciated the efforts of the chief minister for serving the people, particularly of rural areas and he vowed to support the chief minister's donor conference.