Webinar held on Completion of the Inception Phase of PPEPP Program
“PKSF Prosperity Program accelerating the nation’s march towards sustainable poverty alleviation”
Says Senior Secretary, Finance Division, Ministry of Finance
The living status of the poor or the extreme poor reflects the lack of choices they suffer from. And Palli Karma-Sahayak Foundation (PKSF) is relentlessly working to diversify their choices to help them come out of extreme poverty, said PKSF Chairman Dr Qazi Kholiquzzaman Ahmad on Wednesday, 9 December 2020. He was speaking at a webinar organized to share the progress of a multidimensional extreme poverty program, titled Pathways to Prosperity for Extremely Poor People,being implemented by PKSF with joint funding from the UK government’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO, formerly DFID) and the European Union.
Mr Abdur Rouf Talukder, Senior Secretary, Finance Division, Ministry of Finance, spoke at the webinar as the chief guest while Mr Arijit Chowdhury, Additional Secretary, Financial Institutions Division, FCDO Development Director Ms Judith Herbertson and EU Head of Delegation to Bangladesh Mr Maurizio Cian took part as special guests.
Popularly known as ‘Prosperity’, this 6-year program thrives to lift 10 lakh people of 2.5 lakh households out of extreme poverty by 2025. Launched in April 2019, Prosperity covers nearly 200 Unions of 43 Upazilas under Kurigram, Thakurgaon, Rangpur, Dinajpur, Gaibandha, Nilphamari, Satkhira, Khulna, Bagerhat, Magura, Patuakhali, Bhola, Sunamganj, Kishoreganj and Habiganj districts. Inhabitants of these districts are vulnerable to present and future climate shocks that threaten their lives and livelihoods. During the 1-year inception phase, more than 30,000 extreme-poor households have been brought under Prosperity’s coverage.
Delivering the welcome speech, PKSF Managing Director Mr Mohammad Moinuddin Abdullah hoped that the Prosperity program would make significant contributions to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the 7th Five Year Plan of the Government of Bangladesh.
Mr Abdur Rouf Talukder, the Chief Guest of the session, noted that the Prosperity’s multidimensional interventions would eradicate poverty and its causes in a sustainable way.
Ms Judith Herbertson of FCDO and Mr Maurizio Cian of EU acknowledged Bangladesh’s impressive progress in poverty reduction and reiterated their commitment to support poverty alleviation programs.
High officials of different line ministries and departments, Deputy Commissioners and Upazila Nirbahi Officers of the Program’s working areas, representatives from development partners and development organizations, experts on extreme poverty and academicians also spoke at the webinar.
