 Dear students, in this module, we are going to talk about the government initiatives and a way forward to curb the menace of poverty in Pakistan. So poverty reduction in the country is in progress. We see many programs that have historically been launched in order to reduce the poverty. Some of them were aimed at specific geographic areas. The others focused on the particular populations in the country, whereas poverty reduction policies at national level endeavour to address the poverty as a whole for the general welfare of the public. The government of Pakistan has taken some successful initiatives to reduce poverty in Pakistan. Yet these initiatives lack the potential to eliminate the poverty. Multiple factors were contributed to that. So there is a need of holistic solution for curbing this manace. Let's first talk about the government's efforts to reduce poverty. One of them was the Decentralization Plan of 2003. It is essential governance reform where devolution plan or decentralization of government produced rather empowered the provinces and local governments to consume their funds that they generate from the public so that the economic fruits should be trickled down. It tends to replace the existing power structure and control to the people. It enacted a three-tire local government plan. And then they had the establishment of Khushali Bank in 2000. The main aim of this bank was to support by giving money to the poor by making them economically active to start their business plans. As you can see, this is the emblem of Khushali Microfinance Bank. And then Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund in 1997 was another good effort, another positive effort. It aimed to help the poor people by offering them loans for their small businesses. It now works to increase the access of poor and micro enterprises to the credit facilities. And Zakat and Usher Department was created in 1980. It was to follow the Islamic tradition of Zakat. They tended to take Zakat from the rich and to distribute them that money among the poor. As we know that from Islamic jurisprudence or from religious point of view, 2.5% of Zakat was imposed on the wealth of the richer people, which was to be distributed among the poor. And Pakistan-Baitul Mal initiative of 1992 was established to work for the poverty alleviation specifically and it focused on the widow, orphans, disabled and needy and poor people. So its aim is to provide the educational assistance to those who cannot afford residential accommodation to the homeless people, a free medical treatment to those who cannot afford self-employment schemes for the micro-entrepreneurs and it is funded by the federal government. Here is the emblem of Pakistan-Baitul Mal and if we talk about the poverty alleviation as a whole, we need to look at it from a very systematic point of view, like ensuring the resources for the poor, although a lot of initiatives and efforts have been made and many of the promises were committed yet most of them appear to be the false promises. If we really want to ensure the resources for the poor, we need to generate a very systematic approach with which we can identify the real people who are the deserving people and then we can ensure it on the micro-level instead of merely focusing our journal or maybe a very specific approach that has been done through the non-governmental organizations. So at the national level, a complete plan is required to address the poverty and empowerment of the poor is also important because poverty needs to be eliminated through the poor people themselves. It should not be merely addressed by those people who can afford and who can produce the policies by sitting in the comforts of their drying rooms. It needs to be approached through the real people, those who have already faced the poverty. They should also be engaged in the planning and equal access to the market should also be ensured. It should not be based on, the market access should not be based on those who can afford and those who are in the powerful positions. The other market should be open and available whoever wants to do business, no matter if he can invest a large amount of money or he can invest a very little amount of money. And increasing the agriculture productivity should also be focused because we are currently facing acute food shortage. So we need to develop the mechanism to make our lands more fertile and more productive for the agricultural activities and development of infrastructure is also much needed because the poor people find are living on the streets, which is producing further dangers for them. So we need to produce more infrastructures, we need to produce better housing and we need to produce smart cities rather than the conventional styles of living. And the provision of micro financing should also be ensured with the easily accessible opportunities of financing. Then the provision of healthcare facilities should also be ensured even for the poor, even for those who cannot afford. And economic growth should be focused more because we have very little share of exports in our total GNP, which should be the cause of concern. We need to adopt more policies so that our commodities should become the part of international market. The provision of better education facilities for the poor people needs to be ensured. We need to curb the bifurcated education system where the richer people have far more advantage as compared to those who cannot afford. The population control, as we have talked earlier, needs to be addressed because the population can equally become resource as well as a burden if it is not addressed adequately.