 
Paul Wolfowitz walking with students and villagers
from Dhok Tabarak. Photographer: Qayyum Mir | | |
Islamabad, August 15 , 2005 - On the second day of his visit to Pakistan, World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz heard how poor people can transform the quality of their lives when they are allowed to take control of decisions, and women are given a prominent role. He received this instructive tale of development from the people best placed to tell it: the very women and men who have lived through the experience. Spending a highly engaging morning with residents of Dhok Tabarak village in Punjab province, Wolfowitz learned how a former soldier, Malik Mubarak Ali, a village housewife, Rehana Kausar, and others came together in 2001 to form a community group in their muddy, poorly served, backward hamlet. Today their village is vastly different. Every house has water and sewage connection. The roads and pathways are paved. There is a functional school. The incidence of malaria and diarrhea is down. Along with the infrastructure came microcredit. Residents took out micro-loans to expand their business opportunities and also have got into the habit of saving. They have learned how to manage budgets and keep accounts. The village now has three community groups – two for women, one for men. As a result of all this, their incomes are up and land values have risen. "We knew what our problems were. No water and muddy paths with stagnant pools which bred mosquitoes," Mubarak Ali said. "But we didn’t know the solution – until we came in touch with the National Rural Support Programme. (NRSP) The programme, a partner organization of the World Bank-funded Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund, (known as PPAF) motivated us to form a community group," he said. The residents repeatedly stressed the importance of forming a community group and involving women. "Once we got together as a community, our minds opened," Rehana said. "We learned what was happening outside. And the essential thing was that we women were equally involved." Wolfowitz was delighted by Rehana’s analogy of a car: "Men and women are like two wheels. If one moves faster than the other, the car won’t function." Rehana’s point was that it was the women who usually knew best the real issues in a village and in families. She extended the analogy when Wolfowitz asked how exactly the World Bank-funded PPAF had helped the community. "With its funds, it provided the gas to get the car moving," she said. The villagers described PPAF and its partner NRSP’s role as "pushing and motivating us, enlightening us, providing funds, and teaching us how to save and budget". As another woman, Asiba, explained: "We have learned how to use our own resources to find solutions to our problems." The encounter was enlivened by the presence of an urban youth group, for whom the Bank arranged to visit the village earlier in the day. For the group, it was a direct experience of development in action in their own country. They too shared their impressions with Wolfowitz. "It’s wonderful to see how people have come together to transform their lives," Wolfowitz said. "This is a model worth emulating." PPAF is the largest recipient of funding in Pakistan from the Bank’s International Development Association (IDA). It provides infrastructure grants, micro-credit and capacity building services to non-government organizations (NGOs) and private sector organizations who work with the poor. It is currently working with 40,000 community organizations across the country, and has disbursed over US $ 180 million. |
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