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The United Kingdom (UK) has renewed its strong commitment to its development partnership with Pakistan by allocating £41.5 million in bilateral Official Development Assistance (ODA) for the year 2023-24.
According to the statement issued on Tuesday, the new Pakistan Country Development Partnership Summary (CDPS), published by UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, set out a refreshed approach to the UK-Pakistan development partnership.
The new CDPS shows an indicative ODA budget of £133 million pounds for the financial year 2024-25.
2/4 The new approach goes ‘beyond aid’, and is anchored in:
🤝 long-term partnerships tailored to Pakistan’s priorities
⚖️ mutual accountability
👁️ transparencybringing the UK’s economic, scientific, security and diplomatic strengths to our development relationship.
— Jo Moir (@jomoir) July 18, 2023
“The strategy underlines UK’s transition from a traditional aid relationship to a UK-Pakistan partnership for mutual benefit. It aims to unlock progress against Pakistan’s constraints to growth including population dynamics, climate vulnerability, gender equality and the structure of the economy,” it added.
The programme aims to deliver work through existing, scaled-up programmes as well as new programmes which are expected to be announced in due course.
“I am delighted to share our renewed strategy for the UK-Pakistan development partnership,” said Jo Moir, development director at the British High Commission, adding that the new strategy marks a shift from a traditional aid-based relationship.
“We will work with Pakistan to unlock progress against critical challenges: population dynamics, climate vulnerability and the economy,” said Moir. “And we want to use all areas of UK-Pakistan Dosti [friendship] – our diplomatic efforts, trade relationship, people-to-people links, development programmes and defence engagement – to achieve these goals.”
