12,000 nazims, naib nazims to be trained in January
By Hina Kiyani

ISLAMABAD—Ministry of Women Development has chalked out a comprehensive plan to launch training programme for as many as 12,000 countrywide male nazims and naib nazims of union councils from January with the view to grooming them to effectively discharge their duties in tandem with female representatives at grass roots level.
A source talking to APP on Thursday said the ambitious programme was being kicked off as per demand of thousands of women councillors who received training under the ministry's project "Women's Political School" funded by UN Development Programme with a total expenditure of 4.5 million dollars.
She added female representatives had been asking the ministry for grooming their male fellows--male nazims and naib nazims through holding capacity building workshops to effectively perform their responsibilities with them in the system in order to ensure blessings of devolution of power at grass roots level, in a befitting manner.
The donor agencies, the official said, had also been suggesting the ministry to look into the councillors' proposals to bring male nazims and naib nazims within the fold of its WPS training programme to achieve concrete results in the wake of local government system for the welfare of entire society.
The official said women councillors were also calling for reviewing the district support network mechanism to further strengthen coordination among the masses' representatives in the local government system to bring meaningful change at lower level.
These representatives, she added, would be trained through 2-day workshops all across the country while for the master trainers, she revealed, the ministry would hold 5-day long workshops.
When asked whether the same WPS's syllabus would be used for training of male representatives, she said in addition to the existing training materials, some new concepts with main focus on gender-sensitivity would be incorporated into the course.
She revealed that the ministry would utilize the services of the same trainers who were already imparting training to women councillors under the ministry's women's political school project, across the country.
She also said that ministry had recently made as many as 3,000 women councillors computer literate across the country, adding the ministry was committed to sustain the women development process at all costs.