The UNIDO United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is a specialized agency of the UN that strives to achieve shared prosperity and environmental sustainability around the world through the promotion and acceleration of inclusive and sustainable industrial development
Islamabad: (Pakistan Point News - 11th May, 2018 ) The UNIDO United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) is a specialized agency of the UN that strives to achieve shared prosperity and environmental sustainability around the world through the promotion and acceleration of inclusive and sustainable industrial development. Recently UNIDO and Agriculture Department of Gilgit and Baltistan convened the very first Steering Committee meeting for Pakistan Agribusiness and Agroindustry development project for GilgitBaltistan, followed by the Validation Workshop in Islamabad under the Chairmanship of Mr.
Babar Aman Babar, Secretary, P&D Department of Gilgit-Baltistan. The main objective of the deliberations were to finalize the agricultural value chains which needs to be addressed in the project and subsequently finalize the scope of the project and PC1 to acquire government resources for various interventions. Addressing the Steering Committee memberthe Secretary Planning and Development Gilgit-Baltistan, said that climate and abundant water resources make Gilgit-Baltistanregion ideally suitable for fruit crops like cherry and apple etc.
as well as trout fish, however, the farmers and traders are unable to harness the best value of these crops both due to lack of good ideas and technology thereof areas like pre and post harvesting, processing and packaging etcUNIDo’s this initiative will help to overcome the hurdles faced by the farmers through Agribusiness and agro-industry development assistance in Pakistan (PAAID) – Initiative for Gilgit-Baltistan. The event took place in Islamabad with the participation of high-level representatives of the Department of Agriculture and the Planning and Development Department of Gilgit-Baltistan as well as the representatives of ILO, IFAD, Agha Khan Foundation and the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) as well as other Federal agencies.
UNIDO outlined the principles to be considered for formulating the project and briefed the house, about how UNIDO developed the concept of the project and subsequent flow of information through various departments of Gilgit-Baltistan for this project to delineate the state of the art situation in each of these commodities. UNIDO conducted a baseline and feasibility study of Cherry, Apple and Trout Fish these meetings were moderated by the Secretary Agriculture, Mr.
SajjadHaiderThe purpose of the event was to present the preliminary findings of the value chain assessments and feasibilities studies of selected sectors, namely trout, apple and cherry. As part of the event, UNIDO also presented its agro-food value chain approach and potential intervention scope for the selected value chains. In addition, the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan encouraged the development partners in the province to join forces thus ensuring the local needs of farmers.
As an outcome of this event, the Steering Committee members have agreed on the intervention approach for this initiative as well as the timeline to finalize the Trust Fund Agreement and governmental approval between the two parties. Mr. Ali Badarneh, Project Manager of PAAID project form UNIDO HQ in Vienna brainstormed the participants of the meeting by the available approaches for development that could be followed for developing certain agricultural value chain in GilgitBaltistan comparing vertical approach from horizontal approach, he elucidated the benefits and limitation of the two approaches based on this, the Steering Committee agreed to follow the vertical approach for developing Value chain in GilgitBaltistan and they also agreed that rather than going in a big way with one fruit or fish value chain it would be more appropriate that, the project should undertake activities in 3 Value Chains i.
e. Cherry, Apple and Trout starting at Pilot level selecting one or more model farm where the development could be showcased for these commodities so that a follow upscaling could be done through subsequent projects, investments or public private partnership. Nadia Aftab, Country Representative of UNIDO in Pakistan referring to the background of the project commended the provision of seed money from UNIDO and funds from One UN for initiating the project activities, she thanked the Government of Gilgit-Baltistan for continuous support and their vigour for developing the selected fruit and fisheries sector.
She especially praised commitment of Government of Gilgit-Baltistan in year marking funds for this project for technical assistant from UNIDO. She especially praised the keen interest shown by the progressive formers, women associations and women farmers and small fruit businessmen of Gilgit-Baltistan shown in UNIDOs pursuit for providing technical assistance to the stakeholders.