ISLAMABAD - Prime Minister Imran Khan has expressed the government's determination to alleviate poverty from the country.
Addressing the launching ceremony of Data4Pakistan Portal in Islamabad on Tuesday, he said no country can progress if significant portion of its population lives in poverty.
He said a civilized society is known by the standard of living of its poor.
Imran Khan said this is the first step in finding necessary ways and means to fight poverty.
He said this portal will help identify the areas which are in most need of funds, besides finding other vital statistics about issues being faced by the local people.
Criticizing the policies of previous governments, the Prime Minister said ground realities were not considered in budget allocations at that time and more than fifty five percent of Punjab budget was being spent on development of Lahore alone while other provincial cities were ignored.
He said we will focus on equal development of all the areas.
The Prime Minister said Data4Pakistan will also help in policy making at the higher level as well as allocation of budget.
He said the earmarking of the budget will be on need and merit basis, without any political or other influences.
Earlier, Special Assistant on Poverty Alleviation and Social Protection Dr. Sania Nishtar said Data4Pakistan, the first initiative of its kind in the country, provides open and public access to a spatial interactive portal that has poverty estimates for every district in Pakistan, along with over 120 development and policy indicators.
She said the portal currently has six rounds of district poverty and development data, covering the period 2004-2018.
This portal will be a very valuable resource for federal, provincial and district level policymakers, for decision making.