MINGORA: Speakers at the closing ceremony of a project here have said that a model of participatory planning and sustainable development had been established under a project and actions are required to replicate it in other areas of Swat district.

They were speaking at the closing ceremony of a project `Enabling Citizens to Participate in Development and Decision Making Process at Village Level` in Swat district, which was organised by Islampur Cot t age Indus tries Association (ICIA). The project is being funded by USAID`s Small Grants and Ambassador`s Fund Programme.

Government officials, elected representatives from local government, representatives from social sector organisations, district nazim Mohammad Ali Shah and tehsil nazim Ikram Khan participated in the event. The speakers said that a need was felt for establishing a model for participatory planning and sustainable development in the context of evolving local bodies system.

`To establish a model, a pilot project has been implemented in 10 villages of Islampur union council,Mohammad Roshan, a member of ICIA`s BoD said.

`Youth from the targeted villages were organised in formal village relation groups (VRGs) with minimum 10 members in each group,` said project manager Mohammad Ismail.

He said that the group members were trained on participatory planning and data colleetion by imparting training to them on Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA). The youth also collected data of 30 per cent households in the targeted communities and carried out PRA exercise.

`On the basis of these, each community developed a comprehensive village development plan (VDP) for their respective villages.

The VDPs will provide sound basis for future interventions by any stakeholder and will facilitate the community to set forth their agenda for development, he said.

He said that two stakeholders` workshops were organised to share the VDPs with government and nongovernmental organisations and elected representatives so they could play role in solving issues faced by the residents.

Speaking on the occasion, the district nazim said that involvement of community members in planning and decision making process was the need of the day that could pave the way for sustainable development.

`The district government is committed to replicate the model in other areas of the district,` he said.