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Ten Things Worth Knowing About The World Bank in Pakistan

1. We are supporting reforms at both the federal and provincial level.

The Federal and Provincial Governments have been implementing various reform programs aimed at encouraging growth, investment, and employment generation. Reforms at the provincial level are specifically aimed at improving delivery of social services like education, health, clean drinking water, and sanitation. In June 2007, the World Bank approved a US$350 million credit to support ongoing implementation of the Government's Poverty Reduction Strategy. At the provincial level, the Bank approved operations worth US$430 million for Punjab, Sindh and the North West Frontier Province to help improve irrigation, education and human development indicators through improvements in public finance, governance and financial regulatory frameworks. These interventions have been successful in bringing about concrete changes in delivery of provincial services and thus are social and economic indicators in these provinces.

2. We are working with Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund to bring difference in the lives of poor.

The World Bank funded Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund Project (PPAF) is designed to reduce poverty and empower the rural and urban poor in Pakistan through the provision of resources and services to the poor, especially women. This is being achieved through an integrated approach that includes building institutions of the poor and then providing them with micro-credit loans; grants for small scale infrastructure projects; training and skill development and social sector interventions. The program is impacting over 10 million people and has mobilized over 66,000 community organizations (COs) in 27,000 localities across 111 districts in the country. More than 13,000 small scale village-based projects have been identified, constructed and maintained by communities’ right across the country benefiting nearly 6 million people. PPAF has issued 1.5 million micro-credit loans, (average loan-size US$ 150), benefiting nearly 9 million people. Over the last 7 years PPAF has driven the microfinance sector growth from 60,000 borrowers to more than 1.25 million active borrowers in the sector.

3. We are helping the victims of the Earthquake.

The October 2005 earthquake in Pakistan destroyed or damaged around 575,000 rural houses, leaving more than 73,000 dead, and rendering over 3 million people without shelter in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ&K). In response, the government created the Earthquake Relief and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA) and launched an ambitious US$1.5 billion owner-driven rebuilding program - largely suited to the mainly rural affected population. Under ERRA’s Rural Housing and Reconstruction Program (RHRP), partially funded by the World Bank, homeowners are given around US$3,000 in installments to build quake-resistant homes - with routine visits by inspection teams to ensure compliance to agreed seismic-resistant standards. Owner driven reconstruction and rehabilitation of an estimated 463,000 houses have begun and is at various stages of completion. The RHRP has disbursed over $1.1 billion to program beneficiaries or 75 percent of the overall $1.5 billion estimated cost.

4. We are working with the government to improve education outcomes.

The World Bank is providing assistance to the Government of Pakistan in education reforms, at both the national and the provincial level. This support is provided through development policy operations with a strong focus on primary and secondary education. These programs target increasing participation of girls and children from poorer household through interventions such as student stipends and conditional grant systems and by working in partnership with the private sector to provide access to low cost quality education. Our work has a strong focus on improving the quality of education through initiatives such as the National Education Assessment System (NEAS), which measures student achievement and uses the findings to address gaps in student learning. NEAS has established, piloted and improved assessment mechanisms and instruments, which are now being regularly administered. Already, three rounds of assessments have been completed in the four key subjects in Grade IV (Mathematics, Language, Science and Social Studies), and two subjects in Grade VIII (Math, Language), while a fourth round will be undertaken this year, providing baselines of student achievement in all four subjects. The World Bank is also assisting the government in improving the quality and relevance of its higher education and technical and vocational training system.

5. We are joining with international partners to help Pakistan fight polio.

As part of our efforts to help eradicate polio globally, we approved two projects US$42.71 million in 2003 and US $ 74.27 million in 2006 for Pakistan to purchase the oral polio vaccine. The money is part of an innovative financing partnership (IDA Buy-down) between the World Bank, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Rotary International, and the United Nations Foundation. These organizations have formed the Investment Partnership for Polio, an initiative to help eradicate polio worldwide. The loan to Pakistan will help the country’s Polio Eradication Initiative which aims to make Pakistan a Polio free country. Since 1997 the number of polio cases has decreased from 1147 to 31 in 2007. The first project has been successfully completed. Based on an independent third party assessment, the first credit (US$ 42 million) has been converted into a grant and written off for the Government of Pakistan.

6. We are focusing on un-served and underserved low-income communities.

In NWFP and AJK*, Bank projects are supporting delivery of cost effective and sustainable community development schemes, and basic infrastructure and services, using participatory community-based approaches. To achieve this, the role and capabilities of local governments at the district and lower levels have been strengthened to extend technical, financial, and management support to Community-Based Organizations (CBOs). CBO are being mobilized and their capacity is being enhanced to increase their participation in development activities. Governance, transparency, and accountability are being more effective through improvements in operational, monitoring and evaluation, and financial and budgetary procedures for project implementation. In AJK, the project has already reached a population of 893,000 against the original target of 830,000, through 320 CBOs. Out of the 54 Tehsil Municipal Authorities (TMA) in NWFP, 50 are now participating in the Project.

7. We are helping Pakistan prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS.

The HIV-AIDS situation is changing rapidly in Pakistan; the latest data indicate a concentrated epidemic among injecting drug users in several cities. The key challenge facing the country is to expand and improve quality of HIV preventive services to vulnerable groups that are most at risk of contracting and transmitting the disease. These include sex workers and injecting drug users. The Bank is supporting the Government efforts to control AIDS through the HIV/AIDS Prevention Project designed to prevent the disease from becoming established in these populations, while at the same time working to protect these groups from stigmatization. A key focus of the project is delivery of HIV preventive services to high risk populations through public-private partnerships. A total of 17 service delivery packages for injecting drug users (IDUs), sex workers, truckers and jail inmates have been contracted out to NGOs by the National and Provincial AIDS Control Programs covering most major cities across the country. While the overall epidemiological situation remains dangerous, recent evidence suggests that HIV prevention activities are making a difference in containing the epidemic and changing behaviors particularly among IDUs and to a lesser extent among sex workers. Needles sharing among IDUs have decreased and condom use among sex workers has risen over the last year in cities with service delivery packages. At the same time the data underline the urgency of expanding service delivery packages to cities where HIV is becoming established among IDUs and other high risk groups that currently do not have interventions in place. The World Bank is also organizing a region wide Development Market place in South Asia Region on “Tackling HIV AND AIDS Stigma and Discrimination: From Insights to Action” in 2008.

8. We are helping to ‘improve trade flows’ and ‘lower transit costs and times’.

In 2005, the Government of Pakistan (GOP) launched major initiatives around the National Trade Corridor Improvement Program (NTCIP) to reduce the cost of trade and transport logistics and bring services' quality to international standards in order to reduce the cost of doing business in Pakistan and ultimately enhance competitiveness and industrialization. NTCIP has evolved into a national program to improve (overall cost and efficiency) all links in the chain (infrastructure and services) that support trade logistics. The NTCIP also aims to meet increased demand through both improved infrastructure and more efficient services, while keeping costs under control—and is a medium term program that eventually links to the GOP’s Vision 2030. NTCIP's main challenges are: (a) modernize and streamline trade and transport logistics practices and customs; (b) improve port efficiency, reduce the costs for port users and enhance port management accountability; (c) create a commercial and accountable environment in Pakistan Railways and increase private sector participation in operation of rail services; (d) modernize the trucking industry and reduce the cost of externalities for the country; (e) sustain delivery of an efficient, safe and reliable National Highways system; and (f) promote and ensure safe, secure, economical and efficient civil aviation operations and boost air trade. Since the launch of the NTCIP, some early gains of the program are: (i) reduction of port entry charges by 15 percent at Karachi and Port Qasim; (ii) reduction of port dwell times from eleven to five day and reduction of storage times from seven to five; (iii) Port Qasim drafted their business plan towards corporatization; (iv) increase in daily freight express trains on the main north-south corridor from 1 to 5 reducing up-country container travel times by 10-20 percent; (v) Track access policy drafted by Railways; (vi) Trucking sector formally notified as 'Industry' and policy implementation in process; (vii) customs automation software rolled out by FBR for one-custom environment at all ports/dry ports; (viii) draft National Transport Policy reviewed for approval by June 2008; and (ix) Civil aviation business plan approved and draft aviation policy in preparation.

9. We are a “Knowledge Bank.”

With operations in more than 180 member countries, we are uniquely positioned to share international best practice and provide world class analytical and research services to our clients. All our research work is publicly available. A revised policy on disclosure of information since 2002 has helped us reaffirm the importance of transparency and accountability in the development process. It is our policy to be open about our activities and to welcome and seek out opportunities to explain our work to the widest possible audience. Our advisory work includes a number of Pakistan specific reports e.g. Pakistan’s Country Water Resource Assistance Strategy, Pakistan Higher Education Policy Note, Pakistan Promoting Rural Growth and Poverty Reduction, Growth and Export Competitiveness, Pakistan Strategic Country Environment Assessment and Provincial Economic reports. These reports are made public as soon as they are finalized. All our project documents are also available on our Pakistan’s external website.

10. We rely on local expertise.

Around 90 percent of our staff in Islamabad office, plus additional staff in our Washington office are Pakistanis. While a large part of World Bank’s value is it’s global experience and expertise, local knowledge is indispensable to effective development. We also work closely with the Pakistan government, civil society and communities in designing our support for the country. Most importantly our overall assistance to the country is specifically designed to support its own development goals. We have periodic client satisfaction surveys through which we assess how our services are perceived by a cross section of society including the government, private sector, civil society, academia, and media etc. These polls are carried out globally by reputed international firms.

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