The federal government is seeking $300 million from the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank Group to help improve access to and quality of basic services in vulnerable communities in the districts recently merged with Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP).
According to a report by Dawn, following the merger, residents of the merged areas have expressed increased expectations for improved service delivery, particularly in the areas of clean water, food security, education and health.
The ‘Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Rural Investment and Institutional Support’ project will focus on three key areas of support: community infrastructure grants to address rural infrastructure gaps; citizen monitoring of basic services delivery in key service sectors against agreed quality standards; and institutional development and community mobilisation to promote local capacity and to strengthen the transparency, accountability, and capacity of line departments to partner with communities for local development.
It will cover rural communities in fifteen districts that have the largest service deficits, according to the KP Planning and Development Department, including eight districts in the settled areas of KP and seven districts in NMAs.
In addition, these areas have the lowest capacity or resources to address local needs. The project will fill these gaps through a combination of financing, technical support, and institutional strengthening. The geographic scope will be finalised during project preparation and may be extended in a phased approach.
Over the ten-year transition period, KP will continue to receive federal government support to address these priorities, but Pakistan’s fiscal challenges are expected to constrain the pace of development spending in the province to fulfill the vision of the merger, the report concludes.
