PAF Vice Chairman Vidyadhar Mallik said that although the existing assistance amount was supposed to cover its financial needs till September 2012, it has faced shortfall in funding, particularly due to the expansion of its program in new districts. [break]
“We hope to get the shortfall amount of $50 million from WB soon,” he told Republica Wednesday.
On the day, a World Bank team also unveiled the impact of PAF programs on lives of poor people in Nepal. The team has begun a weeklong progress evaluation and consultations for additional funding needs for PAF.
According to data released by WB, PAF´s anti-poverty programs, including different income generation activities, has increased the household consumption of PAF beneficiaries by 28.3 percent in real terms.
“And per capita consumption of households that received PAF monetary assistance for 6-19 months has increased by still higher rate of 44.4 per cent,” said Dr Gayatri Acharya, senior economist and the WB´s task team leader for PAF project, highlighting the findings of an independent impact study conducted in 200 villages of six PAF districts in 2010.
PAF has contributed substantially in the increased school attendance of children of indigenous nationalities and Dalit communities in the PAF districts, Dr Acharya said, adding that PAF support has helped poor achieve a 10 percent rise in food sufficiency levels.
Highlighting the findings of a beneficiary assessment of 8,168 households from 24 program districts where PAF has implemented the targeted poverty reduction programs, she said the average income of individual households has increased by 82.5 percent.
On the second day of the review, the team on Wednesday shared key monitoring and impact evaluation results of PAF with senior government officials, representatives of different development partners, PAF board members and staffers.
Executive Director of PAF, Raj Babu Shrestha, on the other hand, had underscored the requirement for additional funding to cover more poor households in the newly added 15 districts and to deepen its programs in the previous 25 districts.
PAF also plans to implement programs in different poverty pockets in the remaining 35 districts of the country.
Finance Secretary Rameshwar Khanal, on the other hand, suggested PAF to collaborate more with Ministry of Local Development to tap its resources as well for poverty reduction drive. Similarly, Leelamani Poudel, secretary at the Prime Minister´s Office stressed on the need to mainstream PAF with local government´s program.
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