Humanitarian Response For Flood Affected Communities Of Punjab Province In 2008

Status: Completed
Start Date: Nov 2008
End Date: Feb 2009
Geographic Coverage: District Rajanpur, Punjab
Focus Area: Humanitarian Assistance (Emergency Relief)
SDG Goal: –
Implementing Partner: Community World Service Asia (CWSA) Strengthening Participatory Organization (SPO)
Funding Partner: United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF)

Torrential rains of August 2008, flooded Rajanpur district and Taunsa Tehsil of Dera Ghazi Khan in southern Punjab province. According to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), in district Rajanpur, 76 villages were affected by the hill torrents / flash floods which displaced approximately 375, 0001 persons and triggered health issues such as water borne diseases.

With the financial support of United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), Strengthening Participatory Organization (SPO) provided Emergency Relief to the affected population of District Rajanpur in partnership with Community World Service Asia (CWSA) through a three-month long project title ‘Rehabilitation of the WASH component for flood affected in Rajanpur’.

Specific objectives of the projects were;

1. To provide safe drinking water to flood affected community by installing 185 water hand pumps.

2. To ensure promotion of hygiene practices by conducting five health and hygiene awareness sessions.

3. To provide Disaster Risk Reduction awareness in each targeted village/ community.

To ensure smooth and transparent implementation of the project, local government officials and the target community was taken on board for detail project orientation. Keeping in mind the parameters of gender responsive needs, it was ensured that SPO’s interventions had complete ownership of the concerned community. Alongside this, those beneficiaries were reached out who had no access to clean drinking water and were primarily responsible for water fetching chore, for example women. Water Management Committees (WMC) was formed followed by Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signing with local communities for site selection of hand pumps. The intervention was successful because local community had partnered with SPO by providing services of digging and Labor/masons identification for installation of water sources. Almost 26,000 persons were provided improved drinking water facility by installing 185 hand pumps in District Ranjanpur.

Ensuring Code of Conduct for SPHERE standards, after installation of hand pumps was completed at public points, health and hygiene promotion sessions were held with awareness sessions on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) mechanism. It was need of the time to hold such awareness sessions on DRR, which could make the local communities especially women and children more resilient. By the end of this emergency response, the water schemes (installed hand pumps) were handed over to the community for future maintenance as well as for the sustainability. Also Pre and Post KAP surveys were also conducted which concluded that # of person (men and women) were practicing safe hygiene practices 1 Data source EDO (Health) & Secretary Relief Rajanpur