PESHAWAR - The launching ceremony of the World`s Bank, “Pakistan Youth Initiative Programme with University of Peshawar” was held at the Pashto Cultural and Heritage Museum, University of Peshawar. The programme has been launched for the first time in Pakistan and is part of the South Asian youth initiative scheme.
The inauguration of the three-years programme was done by Country Director of World Bank for Pakistan Rachid Benmessaoud while Vice Chancellor University of Peshawar Prof. Dr. Qibla Ayaz was also present on the occasion.
A team of World Bank conducted daylong group interviews of scores of students who were interested to be hired for the initiative among which 25 were short listed for a final approval of University of Peshawar and the donor bank.
The selected students would work as advisor of World Bank on various ongoing developmental projects in Pakistan.
The Director added that resilience of youth is the principal endowment of Pakistan, which is one of the most heartening things for him. This is what makes me believe that how the country sustained the menace of major disasters in the past seven years, he said.
He remarked that eleven donor countries of the world has established a Multi-Donor Trust Fund involving $159 million for the rehabilitation and development of affected areas in Pakistan on the request of the host country in the year August 2010. The fund is mainly aimed at enabling economic revival of the country with a forecast of enhancing the GDP growth to about 6-7 per cent.
While giving a brief about the initiative, he said, it is intended to enhance the youth-to-youth interaction and highlight issues affecting them. Their ideas would be part of the future projects that the Bank is going to start in future and the students would be given stipend along with all the material support required for research, he said.