The Punjab government and the United Nations (UN) System in Pakistan kicked off the roll out of the One UN Programme in Punjab for the next five years on Thursday.
Minister for Law and Local Government & Community Development Rana Sanaullah chaired the concluding session of a stakeholders consultation which was arranged jointly by the government of the Punjab and the UN System.
Speaking on the occasion, provincial minister Rana Sanaullah said that he was happy to note an overlap between the development priorities of the provincial government and those identified in the second One UN Programme.
Earlier in the day, Punjab Planning and Development Board Chairman Muhammad Irfan Elahi inaugurated the consultation workshop. He said that government was paying special attention to improving governance system in the province and introducing reforms. He urged all the participants of the workshop to actively contribute to the deliberations during the session. He also appreciated the efforts of the UN system to organise this important stakeholders’ consultation on the second one UN programme. He renewed the insurance and support assistance of the Punjab government to the UN system for the successful implementation of the said programme.
The UN’s representative Marc-Andre Franche said that the second phase of One UN Programme has been designed in close consultations with diverse stakeholders in the public and non public sectors. He noted that it was encouraging to learn that the government of the Punjab has laid special emphasis on social sector development in its budget for the year 2013-14 and beyond.
“The Punjab government has piloted a number of successful initiatives in the social sector, like the Danish School model, employment schemes, policy reforms, which could be replicated elsewhere”, Franche added.
