Pakistan should focus on a range of critical development issues, including health, education, skill building and social mobilisation, as well as important infrastructure to underpin the future growth, said a statement issued by the World Bank here on Tuesday. Pointing to the Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FODP) conference, the statement said that the international community had rallied to support Pakistan's economic program with more than $5 billion in funding designed to meet its immediate needs and protect expenditures on safety net and human development initiatives critical for poor people. The statement said, "Pakistan's economy started showing strong signs of overheating more than two years ago, and with additional food and fuel price shocks hit last year, policy responses were inadequate. The new government took robust stabilising measures and entered into an International Monetary Fund (IMF) Stand By Arrangement on November last year which remains on track." "Pakistan has done well to protect the poorest 25 percent of its citizens", Isabel Guerrero, World Bank Vice President for South Asia, said in the statement. She said, "Social spending in areas like education and health has been shielded and what we have achieved in Tokyo is to raise that shield for the poor even higher with an additional $5 billion. In essence, under all the macroeconomic numbers, this meeting has been about protecting the poor". The statement said that that the FODP conference recognised the multiple challenges confronting Pakistan to ensure economic stabilisation. "The Donors' sideline' evaluation of GoP's ongoing 9-point economic reforms agenda has lent credence to the scale of robust efforts Pakistan has undertaken in core economic areas like macro-economic stabilisation, social, protection, agri reforms, industrial competitiveness, human resource development, integrated eregy generation plan, capital market reforms, public-private partnership and administrative reforms. Redesigning the internal fiscal policies through economic structures undertaken by the central bank part of the package of economic measures and monetary operations put in place by Government of Pakistan led by Advisor to PM on Finance Shaukat Tarin," the statement concluded.