| Fostering Dialogue on Poverty Alleviation in Pakisan |
| On April 14, 2005 SPDC organized a workshop, titled, “Fostering Dialogue on Poverty Alleviation in Pakistan,” at the Marriot Hotel in Islamabad. The workshop was sponsored by the European Commission (EC) Delegation in Pakistan and was chaired by the EC Ambassador, Ilkka Uusitalo. More than 50 participants from Government, the donor community, academia, and civil society organizations attended the workshop.
The objective of the workshop was to contribute to the current debate and dialogue on pro-poor growth in Pakistan, using the findings and research recently published by SPDC in their 2004 Annual Review of Social Development in Pakistan entitled, “Combating Poverty: Is Growth Sufficient?”
The workshop began with opening remarks by EC Ambassador, Ilkka Uusitalo, which was followed by a presentation of the SPDC report by Acting Managing Director, Dr. Shaghil Ahmed. After this, there was an interactive session with all participants on key issues such as: Why have poverty and inequality not declined? How can growth be targeted so as to generate pro-poor employment? How can progress toward towards MDGs and monitoring of PRSP targets be improved? SPDC is grateful to the following discussants, who each agreed to lead the discussion on one of the above questions: (1) Dr. Sohail Malik, Chairman, Innovative Development Strategies (Pvt) Ltd; (2) Dr. Aliya H. Khan, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, Quaid-e-Azam University; and (3) Dr. Pervez Tahir, Chief Economist, Planning Commission.
The workshop was sponsored by the EC under the Small Projects Facility (SPF). More information on SPF can be obtained at www.euspf.org. SPDC wishes to thank Mireille Perrin Decorzent of the EC Delegation for her special efforts in making this workshop possible. |
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