World's micro-credit doyen Professor Muhammad Yunus yesterday welcomed the concept of creating a South Asian Poverty Development Fund (SAPDF) under Saarc saying such fund would create a common platform to fight poverty in the region.

In a reaction he, however, said the proposed amount of money is not enough for alleviating poverty.

"But the most significant perspective of the fund is that it will create a platform to fight poverty for achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2015," he added.

Executive Director of Centre for Policy Dialogue Debapriya Bhattacharya said the principle of establishing a separate fund for poverty alleviation should be pragmatic and efficient to facilitate all the members sates of South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (Saarc) to work effectively.

Former Saarc secretary general AQM Rahim told the news agency that at the fag end of his tenure he submitted a paper on the poverty reduction fund with some recommendations.

Poverty alleviation experts of various implementing agencies suggested that the mechanism should maintain strong link between macro and micro finance. It should have components to deal with urban poor because nearly 20 percent of the urban people live under poverty line in Bangladesh.

The fund will also help create a bridge between the Saarc countries in understanding each other's poverty reduction plans and problems. It will also help establish a central data bank on poverty alleviation activities.