WB approves $75 million to support TDPs of FATA

The World Bank has approved a credit of US$ 75 million to support the early recovery of families affected by the militancy crisis, promote child health, and strengthen emergency response safety net delivery systems in the affected areas of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

Beneficiaries of the FATA TDPs Emergency Recovery Project are the families from five FATA agencies, namely North Waziristan, South Waziristan, Orakzai, Kurram and Khyber, said a statement by World Bank here on Thursday.

The aim of the project is to support the early recovery of approximately 120,000 displaced families from FATA through two cash grants. First is a onetime Early Recovery Grant of Rs. 35,000 per family and the second one is a Livelihood Support Grant of Rs. 16,000 per family in four monthly installments of Rs. 4,000.

These two cash grants provide complementary interventions to help the displaced families from the five targeted agencies cover the initial expenses needed to restart their lives and livelihood.

The Government of Pakistan is committed to supporting the early recovery and sustainable rehabilitation of all 340,000 displaced families from FATA affected areas.

"The safety net delivery systems built through this project will enhance the capacity of the government to better respond to future crisis, by strengthening the emergency response safety net delivery systems in FATA in a sustainable manner", the statement quoted Rachid Benmessaoud, World Bank Country Director for Pakistan as saying.

FATA is lagging behind in terms of child health indicators as compared to the rest of Pakistan. In the aftermath of the militancy crisis and with the return of displaced families, the already inadequate child health outcomes are expected to deteriorate further.

The project will also pilot the provision of a basic health services package to 64,000 families with children aged 0 to 24 months in up to four tehsils of the targeted areas. "Given the specific circumstances of FATA, the reconstruction phase will be initiated in parallel to the early recovery and rehabilitation phases, and will continue for the coming years", says Amjad Zafar Khan, Task Team Leader of the project. "We would provide technical assistance through this project to enhance program management, transparency and accountability at the federal, FATA Secretariat and local level administration through capacity building, stakeholder consultation, social mobilization and awareness, strategic communication, and monitoring."

The project design has taken into account the lessons learned from previous in-country and international experience with cash transfers in emergency response operations of similar nature.

Lessons on critical elements of design and implementation of cash transfers such as cash grant amount, payment modalities, delivery of child health services, and third party monitoring are being applied to this project.

The credit is financed from the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank Group's grant and low-interest arm. It will be on standard IDA terms, with a maturity of 25 years, including a grace period of 5 years.