ISLAMABAD, Nov 25 (APP): Chairman Earthquake Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Authority (ERRA) Muhammad Altaf Saleem Wednesday applauded the role of International Community after 2005 earthquake and said that international support was instrumental in fast track reconstruction of infrastructure and rehabilitation of lives in the affected areas.This he said during donors and sponsors conference held here to apprise the development partners about the recent reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts.

Altaf Saleem offered to share lessons learnt and experiences of ERRA with international community, and said that ERRA is regarded as role model for post-disaster reconstruction and rehabilitation. 

Lt. Gen Sajjad Akram, Deputy Chairman ERRA gave a detailed presentation to the audience highlighting the progress made in various social interventions while working on over 13,000 projects. The ERRA has completed nearly five thousand projects, while on another five thousand projects, work is in full swing.  While appreciating the efforts of the international community he said that due to commitment and hard work, ERRA has achieved a rapid progress of 68.82 per cent compared to only 21 per cent progress rate in first 3 years, while maintaining transparency.

He said that Rural Housing achieving a success rate of over 95 percent remains ERRA’s flagship programme, while work in education sector has made rapid progress. Talking about the health facilities being reconstructed, he said keeping in mind the concept to Build Back Better, latest state of the art health facilities now provide efficient medical facilities to nearly 90per cent of the communities. He told that Governance sector, Roads, and Water and Sanitation sectors show nearly 90 pc progress. 

While ERRA strives to achieve its reconstruction goals, the interventions have brought about positive social change specifically due to ERRA’s interventions in Livelihood, Social Protection, Disaster Management, Gender and Environment sectors.  A comprehensive documentary prepared by the Media Wing ERRA was highly appreciated by the audience.

Representatives of UN, ADB, World Bank JICA, CIDA, Islamic Development Bank and US Aid along with representatives from embassies of Turkey, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Greece, Italy, France, also attended the donor’s conference.

Gender Report: Making a Difference in 2009, published by ERRA, in collaboration with CIDA was also launched which will be available on ERRA website.Marta Simpers Head of Canadian International Development Agency praised ERRA’s role in gender mainstreaming and empowerment, and said ERRA is recognized as an icon for bringing about a healthier change for women of the remote areas.Representatives of various missions and the donors and sponsors acknowledged the role of ERRA in and refreshed their resolve to keep on supporting ERRA in completion of reconstruction phase.