Good governance crucial for sustainable development: Bukhari
By Khalid Amin

ISLAMABAD—Caretaker Minister for Local Government and Rural Development, Syed Wajid Hussain Bukhari has termed good governance crucial for sustainable development in the country.
He was addressing the inaugural session of 5-days collaborative workshop on “Evolving Regional Model for Good Governance in Rural Development” here today.
The workshop is being organized by Common Wealth Secretariat, Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and Pacific (CIRDPA) and Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development. Wajid Hussain said that special focus of government’s efforts was on improving the lot of the marginalized communities and neglected rural areas.
In order to achieve major restructuring of the governance, National Reconstruction Bureau (NRB) was established in 1999 for enunciating fundamental nation building reforms for transfer of governance at grassroot level, he added. The focus of NRB, he said, was upon buildingrepresentative local structure to involve governmentresponsiveness to the issues at local level.
Wajid Hussain expressed the hope that this workshopwill prove helpful in identifying recommendations for viable solution to the issues being faced by the member countries in establishing good governance in their respective countries.
Secretary, Local Government and Rural Development, Mohammad Saleem Khan, on the occasion, appreciated therole of National Centre for Rural Development (NCRD) in motivating the civil societies to play their role in thedevelopment of rural areas.
NCRD has so far conducted more than 500 trainingprograms and research studies including 28 researchstudies offered by CIRDAP, he told.
Highlighting the government’s concerned efforts inelevating the life standard of rural communities,he said,local government has provided ample opportunities to the rural communities through projects like establishing Musalihat Anjumans in different districts to solve the disputes of people.
M.Naeem ul Haq, Member National ReconstructionBureau (NRB) gave the presentation on “People’sparticipation in community works” to elaborate the roleof Citizens Community Boards (CCBs) for the improvementof service delivery, development and management of new public facilities and involving the people in planning and execution of the development process.
Representatives of different countries includingSrilanka, Bangladesh,India and Singapore participated in the workshop.They presented research papers and sharedtheir ideas on role of good governance on the basis of existing development projects.