ANKARA, 14 December 2015: Minister of State/Chairperson of Benazir Income
Support Programme (BISP) Ms. Marvi Memon
met here today with the Turkish Minister for Family and Social Policies Dr.
Sema RAMAZANOĞLU.
During the meeting, the two sides agreed to enhance bilateral collaboration
for women empowerment, poverty reduction, skills development and sharing of
best practices.
Ms. Marvi Memon informed Minister Sema RAMAZANOĞLU that BISP is acknowledged
as one of the top 5 social safety net programmes worldwide and is globally
appreciated for its transparency and use of technology. She added that 5.2
million women are enrolled in this programme who are given national identity
cards and they get quarterly stipend through banks via ATM card. This way, these
women are not only economically empowered, but are also politically empowered
as through the national identity card, they get voting rights as well.
The Chairperson added that BISP is making efforts to establish ‘Sisters in
Success’ model whereby women, who have established themselves as successful
entrepreneurs at international and national levels, will share their key
messages with poor women in Pakistan for their inspiration. Terming the
brotherly relationship between the people and leadership of Pakisan and Turkey
at its peak, Ms. Marvi Memon said that inspirational messages from Turkish
women entrepreneurs will register very well with Pakistani women and this could
be an important starting point for mutual collaboration, she added.
Ms. Marvi also updated the Turkish Minister about school education
programme of BISP whereby one million additional children shall be in school soon
through conditional cash transfer to mothers for sending their children to school.
She also shared BISP exit strategy for addressing poverty, which will be
teaching the poor women technical and vocations skills and giving them interest
free loans for self-employment.
Ms. Marvi suggested joint branding for the products made by the BISP
beneficiaries. She proposed that the best designers of Turkey and Pakistan could
collaborate to create brands for the products made by the poor BISP
beneficiaries which will earn them decent living and help get them out of the poverty
circle.
Turkish Minister Dr. Sema appreciated the idea of joint branding of the
products made by the poor women. She said this could be a good strategy for
their economic empowerment. She also thanked Minister of State/Chairperson BISP
for the invitation to visit Pakistan.
Earlier, Ms.
Marvi Memon visited the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey
(TOBB) and met with Ms. Ayfer Yilmaz, Vice President of TOBB Women Entrepreneur
Board and discussed matters relating to closer interface between women
entrepreneurs of Pakistan and Turkey. Among other things, she referred to
corporate social responsibility and said businessmen and investors should share
the burden of providing social services and ensure welfare of people in their
area of operations. She said those philanthropists and NGOs who want to
establish socio-economic uplift projects can benefit from the poverty database
of BISP.
No comments:
Post a Comment