Islamabad, November 30: Under a now fully-entrusted 40 million euro soft loan from the Italian government to the Pakistani government, to achieve a Poverty Reduction Programme (PPR), the last year of activities are based on a bilateral teamwork between the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) and a number of Italian excellencies as in this case LUISS who concludes today a three week long training session at the hospitable Pakistani Research Center on Water Resources, water being at the heart of human and land development, with the constant support of the Office of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation in Islamabad and of the Embassy and Consulate of Italy.
LUISS Business School supports the growth and transformation of LUISS Guido Carli University corporate and institutional partners in Italy and abroad by providing talents and competencies through its education and research activities allowing these partners to face present and future economic and social challenges. LUISS is among the first 1% of Business Schools to make its students get a job after graduation.
The training activities carried out in Pakistan and focused on Youth Policies, Health and Nutrition and Information and Communication Technology applied to Educational programs were providing and sharing Italian and European developmental traditions, best practices and innovations. The expected results are: strengthening the skills and vision among staff of Partner Organizations; create an enhanced integrated approach within the Union Councils (UCs); bring improvements in Poverty Reduction Programme key areas being implemented by Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund and enhance the overall effectiveness of the Programme and ultimately its sustainability.
The closing ceremony was presided by the Director of the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation Office in Pakistan, Ms Emanuela Benini and by the CEO of PPAF Qazi Azmat Isa.
Ms. Emanuela Benini, recognized the value of the Pakistan Italian teamwork : “I have seen Italian instructors from Luiss Business School both present and through adaptive remote exchange conferences sharing with the participants during the three weeks sessions a set of insights and modalities comprehending innovation, sustainability and implementation of smart solutions, set as Action Plans, to drive their communities towards self-development, and have adapted the activities to the rich range of provenance of the participants. The next step being, how all participants will metabolise and organize among themselves and back to their communities the new drive to self-development which is as individual as it is collective. The participants are the first social communicators for development that my renewed Office in Islamabad would like to listen to when traveling to the field.”
CEO PPAF, Qazi Azmat Isa shared his thoughts about the training sessions and said, “I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the Italian government, Italian Agency for Development Cooperation and Luiss Business School for helping us conduct these trainings in an efficient manner. I believe such trainings could have a monumental impact in the lives of the underprivileged and help them gain valuable exposure. We look forward to more of such collaborations in order to forge a brighter tomorrow.”
As one of the largest sources of pro-poor spending in the country, the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund is the lead agency for poverty reduction in Pakistan. It embodies the spirit of public-private partnership to address the multi-dimensional issues of poverty with a view to achieving social and economic change. PPAF outreach extends throughout Pakistan as it has partnered with 130 organizations working in over 100,000 villages/settlements with more than 133,000 community organizations and 440,000 credit/common interest groups at the grassroots level in 137 districts.
