Grand tribal jirga held with GIZ

Grand Jirga of Fata,FRs elders and GIZ officials held
Stefan formally hand over officials responsibilities to Grassner

Ashrafuddin Pirzada


PESHAWAR: A grand jirga between GIZ officials and Fata elders was held in Peshawar in which the outgoing Fata Development Program(FDP) Head ,Stefan Schmidt, formally hand over the office responsibilities to the upcoming FDP head Rainer Glassner here on Thursday.

The Jirga, held in development and research center Peshawar, was opened with the recitation of few versus of the holy Quran followed by the welcome address of Stefan Schmid.He said that it was a great pleasure and honor for him conducting the grand tribal Jirga again in his tenure,In 2010, he said a great jirga of same nature had been convened in Bara Gali.Stefan shed light on the over all achievements during the last four years GIZ achieved with the cooperation and coordination of communities and Fata secretariat.
The outgoing FDP head Schmid thanked the French and German governments who provided GIZ funds beside the technical assistance. Stefan praised that last four years of his team commitments said that the programs were designed to bring drastic changes in society and transparency in project implementation, capacity building of Community Based Organizations(CBOs),buildup a network between Fata officials,communities and GIZ.
Appreciating the key role of Independent Project Reporting(IPR) the GIZ official said that it brought a great revolution in sense of transparency and qualitative work for the deserving people in FRs and Khyber Agency. He said that rather constructive activities by IPR it also played a bridging role between GIZ,communities and Fata officials.
Stefan Schmid told the communities' elders and officials of the Fata secretariat that they have plan to work also with the Fata education and health components.

Fayyaz Ali Khan of GIZ education component said that education situation in the Fata and FRs is deteriorated. He said that 10 arab rupees are being allocate in every fasicale budget in which 84% of the amount is the salaries of teachers while the rest of the amount is spent on the school's development. Fayyaz said 36,00 primary schools are operating in Fata in which 315,000 children are enrolled.But he lamented that 0.6 million children of primary ages not go to schools.He said that everyone should think about the children languishing in the so-called government-run schools where e,according to Fayyaz, no proper schooling around the year.He said 50% of these schools lacking basic facilities of drinking water,shelter,litrens inside the compound.
The education component official said that militancy,less trained and less qualified staff, corruption and poor schoolmanagement are the major reasons involved in the poor schooling in the tribal regions.
"To overcome from these constraints,Fayyaz said, they have introduced a model of school effective approach " Islahi Jirga" consist of students., teachers,community and education officials". He said school management idea is used world wide and successful anywhere implemented. He said so far they have provide trainings in the 246 schools in Fata which benefited 16000 students.
IPR official Atif in his presentation said it was a challenge for them to bring transparency,accountability and quality in the funds utilization when IPR was introduced.He said to fulfill the challenging job they involved working journalists that proved a fruitful experience. Atif said to further make the project implementation aims oriented they started Short Messages Service(SMS) through which anyone can contact GIZ and definitely will be responded. He said so far IPR prepared 150 reports and published 18000 copies of news letter(Kha Jwand). Besides the other interventions in Fata and FRs, Atif said,they are training new journalists for whom they have started three months development journalism diploma.He said first batch of 14 students were graduated last week and second batch of the same course was in progress Peshawar Unversity journalism and Mass Communication department.
GIZ country director, Heinrich Juergen Schilling welcomed the upcoming FDP head and lauded the contributions of the outgoing FDP head Schmid.
Daud Afridi,deputy director Fata projects, thanked GIZ for the multi-dimentional uplifting schemes in Fata and frontier regions.
"I am taking keen interest in the GIZ projects since 2009 as I saw sincereness and seriousness among the GIZ team ", said Afridi and added that shortly a well-equiped education projects is to be launched in Fata which will insure quality of education at primary level.

Malik Mir Aslam, a tribal elder from Jamrud Khyber agency, said in his English pre-prepared speech that they had a good time with Schmid and praised his foresight for the development of Fata and FRs. Mir Aslam termed the 9/11 incident a drama and said that actually it was plot against the Fata people and Pakistan. He said Fata people were pushed back into the stone age in the last ten years so-called war on terror.
"It would not need that NGOs come to them and initiate projects if war not imposed on them after 9/11", Malik Mir Aslam revealed. Malik Mir Aslam also suggested that GIZ should exempt the community from the 20% share in projects cost said it had created rift and rivalries between them.

Later, Stefan Schmid formally requested Grassner on the stage and hand him over a symbolic FDP picture as transfer of administrative authorities to him.
Community members and elders presented gifts to GIZ officials and weared them Kolas.