Humanitarian Assistance for Flood Affected Communities
Status: Completed Start Date: Feb 2011 End Date: Jan 2012 Geographic Coverage: District Nowshera, Peshawar and Charsadda, in KPK ; District Muzzaffargarh, Rajanpur and Mianwali in Punjab District Ghokti, Sukkur and Shikarpur in Sindh ; District Sibi, Jafarabad and Naseerabad in Balochistan Focus Area: Humanitarian Assistance (Early Recovery/Rehabilitation) SDG Goal: – Implementing Partner: SPO Funding Partner: –
The devastating floods of 2010 in Pakistan, following the second monsoon spell affected over 20 million lives1. The provinces of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab (with more than 3.6, 4.3 and 8.2 million people affected, respectively) were the worst affected regions.
According to UNFPA report, women and children were the most vulnerable groups; accounting for approximate 70% of the worst affected populations. This may be attributed to the peripheral position women occupy within the patriarchal socio-‐economic structure of Pakistan.
The existing power dynamics, at the macro and households levels, are such that men have primary control over resources and decision-‐making. The gender-‐inequity deeply ingrained in the existing power structure further aggravates during crisis situations such as 2010 floods and this is merely because of the insensitive individual, collective and institutional behavior of the society.
To address to the problem, SPO provided rehabilitation and early recovery opportunity to its target population.
The overarching goal of the project was to facilitate citizen’s active participation in the empowerment of women in areas worst affected by the flood; by facilitating their access to resources and institutions to enable control over their own lives and improve attitudes and behavior towards them (women) and their concerns.
Through this year-long project, and various advocacy, research, capacity building, and service delivery activities SPO;
i. Trained 40 relevant organizations about land title restoration, including formation of linkages between institutional stakeholders and recipient population.
ii. Aided 96 female headed households in reclaiming land titles, per region.
iii. Development of need based package for support (assets, credit, supply lines, market access) for identified home-based economic activities.
iv. 180 women provided training and inputs to re-establish their economic activities.
v. At least 40 water systems rehabilitated/established/facilitate
vi. At least 24 training programs, per region (four regions), for safe water practices in relation to rehabilitated systems (with community women who benefit from the water supply).
