Dawn reports:
Bill Gates Foundation pledges $6.5 million to support health, education efforts LONDON May 11 (APP).
The Bill Gates Foundation pledged US$ 6.5 million to Pakistan Human
Development Fund (PHDF) for supporting its health care and school education programmes in neglected districts of the country. State Minister and Chairman for National Commission for Human Development, Dr.Nasim Ashraf, announced the contribution while speaking at a dinner hosted by the patrons and trustees of the Pakistan Human Development Fund UK Chapter on Tuesday.(Posted @ 17:50 PST)
Heavily monitor these spendingsWhile we are extremely lucky to have attracted Microsoft’s attention once more… I believe these funds are only a start to what the foundation has to offer. With India’s IT market slowly getting saturated and rates of pay reaching higher, Pakistan is the next potential candidate for the big players. To attract further investment these initial funds, only a fraction of what can follow, should be spent responsibly. It seems the big foundations have always tested the waters for further potential, with small funds for health and other infrastructure related activities as was the case in India in 2002. http://www.aegis.com/news/bbc/2002/BB021105.html where the foundation donated close to a 100$ million for AIDS research. While India was well along the progressive line by 2002, the foundation kept up its funding and India steadily climbed.
Lets hope our beloved ministers and statemens are heavily monitored this time round & manage to earn the respect of these giants for the sake of our peoples and spend this money well.
I/O problemmoney goes in but not much comes out. In 2001, a Rs.2 billion e-government plan was approved and set to materialize over 12 quarters (3 years). We’re well past 2004 and I am not sure if anything substantial — besides NADRA — materialized from those funds.
And so you know, I am not just blowing smoke (well maybe some) have a look for yourself at the e-government contracts. They are either vague (Project Management Implememtation?) or haven’t had any noticeable impact (citizen online? show me a worthy implementation of this).
It would be cool to do a more thorough analysis of what they put out there, test their implementation and then post an analysis online.