Sindh govt to host development forum to evolve new uplift strategy

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah in a high-level meeting held here at the CM House has approved the arrangements for Sindh Development Forum (SDF) 2018 with the slogan of `Partnership for Development’ going to be held on March 28, 2018, at a local hotel in Karachi.

The SDF would be attended by 19 country heads of different agencies such as World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), International Labor Organisation (ILO), United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), US Agency for International Development (USAID), European Union, ACF, World Food Programme, and others and a large number of leading diplomats.

“This would be a big event and opportunity to evolve new strategy for development of Sindh and strengthen development partnership with national and international partners and donor agencies,” said the Sindh CM.

The meeting was attended by all the provincial ministers, Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon, Chairman P&D Mohammad Waseem and secretaries of all the departments.

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Syed Murad Ali Shah said that the objective of the forum is to understand the state of development in the province, recognize development gaps, evolve the shared understanding of priorities between the government and development partners, formulate common strategies for the development, to become guiding tool in ADP formulation and to launch new formulated strategies.

Chairman P&D Mohammad Waseem, briefing the meeting, said that the programme comprises of three sessions. The first session would be plenary; it would introduce the forum’s objectives, set the context and orient participants about working groups.

The second session comprises of deliberations and presentations by nine parallel working groups. The groups would converge for consolidating the recommendations and third and the final session is plenary in which thematic leads would present the sectoral recommendations.

Waseem told the meeting that nine breakout sessions on different sectors such as agriculture, food security, health; water, sanitation and municipal services, education, energy and infrastructure, economic growth, private sector and public private partnership mode, public financial management and poverty reduction & community development.

There would be a panel discussion on state of play, success and challenges to date-what has worked, what has not worked and priorities for development assistance.

The chief minister has termed the forum as an opportunity to evolve new guideline for shaping up provincial economy, development and focused approach on the development gaps. He directed all the provincial ministers and secretaries to participants with the objective to extract something better for their respective sectors or departments.