Andrew Mitchell MP visits Pakistan to see the challenges in Punjab first-hand
12 January 2010
Andrew Mitchell MP, Shadow Minister for Birmingham and Shadow Secretary of State for International Development, visited Pakistan last week to see first-hand the situation of poor people in Punjab and to gain a wider understanding of the development and security challenges in Pakistan as a whole.
Andrew visited a one-doctor rural health centre which provides basic services to local people including emergency obstetric care, nutritional advice, immunisation and treatment of common illnesses. The centre also acts as a base for a cadre of volunteer lady health workers who work in their own communities to help ensure that local women have access to health services and family planning advice.
Visiting schools in the village of Dharabi, Punjab, Andrew was impressed by a girls’ middle school where pupils are supported by a government stipend that helps families send their daughters to school. By contrast he was struck by the very basic circumstances of a mixed primary school, where a single teacher is responsible for the education of all of the school’s children whose ‘desks’ are actually mats on the concrete floor and some of whom walk 5 miles to school and back each day.
Andrew also visited the village of Athar where, supported by the non-governmental organisation National Rural Support Programme, the whole community has organised itself to develop a self-sustaining water system that brings water to every household. He was shown the bookkeeping system for billing families for what they use each month (they pay about £1 a month for what they use, and widows aren’t required to pay), and sampled samosas from a shopkeeper who used a micro-loan to build his business from scratch.
Andrew also had meetings with President Zardari of Pakistan and the Chief Minister of Punjab province, Shabaz Sharif, where he discussed the government’s work to reduce poverty in the province as well as Pakistan’s role in the region given the wider security challenges it faces.
Andrew said: “Some of the people living in Punjab are amongst the poorest people in the world and it is right that Britain supports them.
“Pakistan is also at the frontline of the war against terror and has a civilian death toll from suicide attacks that we in Britain find hard to imagine.
“I was very grateful to see for myself the outcomes of the programmes that our development assistance supports, and was impressed by the commitment to improving people’s lives of the teachers, doctors and community members that I spoke to.”
