Rs9.9 billion extension phase of CDLD Programme launched

PESHAWAR: The European Union and government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are jointly spending Rs9.9 billion on the projects prioritized by communities in 12 districts under the Community-Driven Local Development (CDLD) Programme.

This was stated here on Thursday during the launching ceremony of the extension phase of the CDLD Programme where Chief Minister Pervez Khattak was the chief guest. Addressing the function, the chief minister said that the CDLD programme of the provincial government, supported by the European Union, empowered communities to prioritise, execute, and own their local development projects. Pervez Khattak said after the implementation of first phase of the programme in the six districts of Malakand division, he was delighted at its extension to six more districts of province thus covering almost half of the province.

The chief minister added after the inclusion of livelihood projects and assigning role to local councilors would enable the communities to avail ample benefits of the CDLD Programme. Ambassador of the European Union to Pakistan, Jean-François Cautain, also spoke on the occasion and said, “The European Union and the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa will be jointly contributing Rs9.9 billion in a phased manner until 2020 to sustain the implementation of the CDLD Programme in 12 districts of the province.”

He reiterated the EU’s continued support to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa towards creating new development opportunities in the province. According to the literature provided during the function, the CDLD Progromme since its inception in 2015 received 23,000 applications from the communities for their projects, of which 4,062 projects worth R5.1 billion have been approved, including 731 women focused projects.

About 1,707 community projects have already been completed at cost of Rs 3.2 billion and over 3million people are supposed to benefit from these projects. The programme is currently being implemented in nine districts. These include Buner, Chitral, Lower Dir, Upper Dir, Haripur, Malakand, Nowshera, Shangla, and Swat.

At least 15 percent of the total funding is exclusively reserved for women specific projects, while another 6 percent will be awarded to livelihood development projects. Village council development plans are being formulated in the programme areas to identify and approve community projects for funding and implementation.

It is a bottom-up development approach, where community projects highlighted and prioritised in the village council development plans are approved for funding. Specific roles have been assigned to Village Council Nazims and assistant directors local government in the implementation process.

The provincial government has also established a dedicated funding modality to ensure availability of finances for CDLD. The evaluation process for all project applications is now completely automated to ensure transparency.

Earlier, addressing the participants of the ceremony, Senior Minister Local Government, Inayatullah stated that one of the biggest outcomes from the first phase was the direct involvement and active participation of the communities in their own development projects, which has never been done before in the province on such a large scale.

He shared the government’s plans for continuing efforts more widely as the CDLD Programme moved into the extension phase. Diplomats of EU countries, senior provincial government officials, district level government authorities, representatives of development partners and local media professionals attended the ceremony in large numbers.

Secretary Local Government Syed Jamal-ud-Din Shah, secretary Planning and Development Department, Zahir Shah, Director General of Local Government, Amir Latif, and the Managing Director of Human Dynamics, Bernhard Hulla, also highlighted various aspects of the CDLD Programme implementation.