CHITRAL, Sept 29: Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) has selected Chitral as the model district for development and will spend Rs1 billion on different development sectors in the selected union councils.

This was stated by PPAF representatives Masood Khalid, Rana Sarwar and Inayatullah Niazi during a meeting with Deputy Commissioner of Chitral Shoaib Jadoon here the other day.The PPAF representatives told the deputy commissioner that a forum of development partners, named District Development Forum and consisting of Sarhad Rural Support Programme, Aga Khan Rural Support Programme and other organisations working in the development sector, would be established for the project under the supervision of the district administration.

They said a development strategy would be evolved by the forum before the selection of union councils for development schemes as pointed by the local communities.

The PPAF representatives said their organisation had decided to reach out to the community at base level and it was on that ground that certain union councils would be selected for concentration of its funding and attention.

They said the coordinated and coherent efforts were needed to accelerate the pace of development and the forum would act as a bridge among development organisations.

The deputy commissioner appreciated the PPAF initiative and said the backwardness of Chitral due to its enormous size and small size of population called for such initiatives.

He said PPAF already carrying out lots of interventions in the district through SRSP and SRSP had broadened its spectrum of activities and Chitral was one of its main beneficiaries.

Mr Jadoon also stressed the need for compiling and refreshing integrated data on the development initiatives taken up by the government and nongovernmental organisations in the district.

Provincial Project Coordinator Abdur Rehman, District Program Manager Tariq Ahmed of SRSP and Regional Programme Manager of AKRSP Sardar Ayub were also present in the meeting.