ISLAMABAD, Vice President of the World Bank for South Asia, Hartwig Schafer has appreciated Pakistan’s largest social protection intervention of Ehsaas, which has contributed to mitigate the sufferings of poor segments during the pandemic.
He was talking to the Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Poverty Alleviation Dr Sania Nishtar on Wednesday, said a statement..
Hartwig Schafer assured full support and cooperation on the behalf of the World Bank for Ehsaas and expressed that countries around the world can learn a lot from Pakistan’s Ehsaas programme.
Schafer assured full assistance of the World Bank to anti-poverty efforts undertaken under Ehsaas. He also praised the Ehsaas 50% plus benefits policy for women and girls which aims to create a conducive sociocultural and economic environment to ensure women and girls can participate in all spheres of public and private life.
Hartwig Schafer was leading a delegation consisting of high-ranking officials from the World Bank- Najy Benhassine, Country Director; Gailius J. Draugelis, Operations Manager; and Amjad Zafar, Senior Social Protection Specialist.
While briefing the delegation, Dr Sania outlined ten major foundation stones laid out under Ehsaas to make the programme transparent, inclusive resilient and results driven. She highlighted, in particular, the governance and integrity policy; Ehsaas 50% plus benefits policy for women; culture of delivery tied to policies, frameworks and strategies; institutional consolidation of executing entities; Ehsaas National Socio-economic Registry; One Window operations; transparency measures; digitally enabled systems and dashboards; expert committees; and design stamped roll out of multisectoral programmes that enabled Ehsaas to reach out to 40% of the country’s population.
Further, Dr Sania shared the women centric policy of Ehsaas that poorest families are given a higher amount for educating girls and are offered support through higher secondary school levels. Also, girls are given a bonus on the completion of 5th grade based on the understanding that this will enable continuation of education to the secondary level. She also lauded the World Bank’s support to Ehsaas programme since its launch in 2019.
Schafer is on the visit to Pakistan between August 3-8, 2021. During his visit, the delegation is meeting with key counterparts about the upcoming country partnership framework as well as government of Pakistan’s ambitious reform on human capital, and economic and inclusive growth in Pakistan.
