WFP to increase communities’ resilience in FATA through seasonal livelihood program

By Tayyeb Afridi 

ISLAMABAD: The United Nations World Food Program (WFP) in collaboration with other partners is implementing the government of Japan USD 0.5 million funded project to support seasonal livelihood program in erstwhile FATA to eradicate poverty, end malnutrition, and improve quality of lives of the repatriated populations.

The project was officially announced by the Secretary for Livelihood and Production Department, Abdul Latif, and the Ambassador of Japan in Pakistan,  Mr Takashi Kurai, during a press event in Islamabad last week.

In order to develop a sustainable model that can later be handed over to government of Pakistan, WFP will work out a strategy to enable local people to have relevant expertise, knowledge and skills to grow their own food and take care of their family needs during challenging environment, WFP country director Mr. Finbarr Curran tells Tribal New Network during an interview about the project.

While explaining the concept of seasonal livelihood program Mr. Curran says livelihood means enabling local people by giving them expertise, knowledge, quality seeds or whatever it takes so that they can establish their farms, grow their own food and have access to the market. So livelihood support is to make sure people have expertise to grow food not only for themselves but also for communities around them.

One of the components of this project is to gather Information and create centralized data hub that will help in mitigating risks and understanding the socio-economic status of the communities to produce “risk-informed planning tool to identify interventions suited to a variety of contexts and time frames”.

WFP will work with larger communities to identify needs of the communities and develop a strategy on delivering livelihood skills, humanitarian and development interventions so that people in the tribal districts can establish and support their lives by growing food in hostile environment he says while elaborating on the role of WFP in the project.

That is why WFP engages for longer term in areas such as erstwhile FATA that has witnessed conflict and now vulnerable to disasters, Mr Curran says after developing resilience of farmers and growers, the chances of eradicating poverty, and ending malnutrition will increase manifold.

Apart from WFP, Food and Agriculture organization (FAO) is also active in Pakistan and implementing projects in erstwhile FATA related to food security and improving resilience of local people.

To differentiate between the roles of the two UN agencies, Mr. Curran says that FAO looks at agricultural policies, agriculture farms, quality of seeds, whereas WFP looks at feeding people and identifying and providing nutritious food. “In fact, they work together very well on projects, for example, WFP work with FAO to help farmers grow the type of food that they believe is nutritious and healthy”, he remarks.

According to him, some people look at UN as a combination of lots of organisations that intervene in each other areas but that is not the case.

At UN, these agencies are trying to create projects that leverage each other expertise and ultimately handover projects to government because they believe once you establish a livelihood program you are in position to withdraw for government, he concludes.

https://www.tnn.com.pk/wfp-to-increase-communities-resilience-in-fata-through-seasonal-livelihood-program/

No mention of women rights protection in Interim Governance Regulation for FATA

By Tayyeb Afridi 

ISLAMABAD: Farhatullah Babar, Secretary General of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), has asked the provincial assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to review and amend the Interim Governance Regulation (IGR) because it lacked clarity on women rights, holding of local bodies election and extension of judiciary. The IGR was promulgated by the previous government under which erstwhile Fata would be governed until it passed through transitional period.

The former senator was talking to Tribal News Network (TNN) on the sidelines of the roundtable conference titled Integrating Fata into KP and the challenges ahead, organised by Tribal Youth Organisation in Islamabad Riphah University.

The roundtable was attended by Minister for Religious Affairs, Noor-ul-Haq Qadri, MNA Munir Orakzai, Minister of State for Climate Change Zartaj Gul Wazir and many journalists, development experts, and tribal male and female students.

To a question that there is no woman in the task force constituted by Prime Minister Imran Khan for identifying and removing impediments in the reforms process, he said there is even no mention of protecting women rights in the regulations governing Fata. While explaining it further, he said that there are customs under which women are ‘sold’ or being given as compensation to resolve conflicts, and codifying or providing legal cover to such customs runs contrary to human rights and women rights in particular.

Regarding extension of judiciary, he said, it needed to be elaborated because as per this regulation, all the judicial powers are being given to deputy commissioners.The legal experts also voiced concerns regarding unclear roadmap on how to establish and run higher courts in the tribal areas amid call for accommodating customs and traditions.

Mr. Farhatullah Babar said there is also no roadmap for local bodies election in the regulations and in order to hold this election in the erstwhile Fata, the government of KP needs to amend the IGR. He added that neither the National Assembly nor the prime minister could stand in the way of provincial assembly if it decides to go ahead with the changes. However, whenever the provincial assembly of KP takes this step, “it will become clear who is against the mainstreaming of Fata”.

KP-FATA Is Likely To Be Worst Victim Of Climate Change

By Tayyeb Afridi 

The country has just awakened to the fact that climate change is happening and water shortage is one of its adverse impacts and some of us have asked again that why Kalabagh dam was not built in the first place.

If I may ask that why on earth there is only one place in Pakistan that should have dam. Can’t we have dams elsewhere in Pakistan? This was a stupid idea not to construct other dams because of Kalabagh as if it was the only option we have had. We all know this has been politicised badly and it won’t help even a technocrat comes up with facts and figures in support of it. It is not going to build in next 20 years or so until someone comes up with an idea that benefit local people and concerned provinces that claims royalty.

Anyways, this is still early that we realised there are other places as well that can be used for constructing dams. Thanks to chief justice of Pakistan- at least on this front- who brought scarcity of water as an issue to limelight in Pakistan. Indeed, the chief has solved a million dollars question as many governments failed on how to take decision regarding building other dams such as Diamer-Basha and Mohmand.

According to experts in Agriculture University Peshawar, the temperature in KP have raised 1.5 Celsius since 1990 and it will further raise by 1.5 Celsius which is an indication that weather patterns are changing drastically for all districts in KP except Chitral and Upper Dir.

It is not only the water that is at risk, our agriculture, soil, forest, livestock, and fisheries are also at grave risk and so far nothing significant has been done on part of governments in all provinces except a billion trees plantation drive in KP which was doubted by many but still it was pursued by PTI’s government and appreciated by environmental organisations at International level.

In KP, the seasonal shifts are already being experienced as winters are getting shorter and summer longer. The shift indeed has implications on crop production and water availability.

One of the scary news is that KP will come under monsoon corridor till 2030 as per experts in Agriculture University and it will have no or very rare rainfall during winter season, causing problem for winter crops.

There will be, on other hand, heavy rainfall in summer causing flash floods which will damage wheat crops-a major crop that we grow, consume and export it to the only country of the world i.e. Afghanistan. No one else wants our wheat because it isn’t as much nutritious as it is in other countries.

In such a situation if we don’t have dams we won’t be able to store water. The excessive rainfall in summer could destroy farming lands, leaving it unproductive and there is possibility of floods that could destroy villages as we have seen in 2010.

We need to find ways to timely adapt so as to tap on opportunities and reduce negative impacts on soil, food, and water. We also need technology-based assessment that should lead to adoption of new technology, which is necessary for water and agriculture products. It’s now a job of the government -not people- to find ways and tape on opportunities.

I do appreciate the current government for not forcing people into donations for Dams. Otherwise, there were ‘experts’ advising government to impose a particular tax like the one we had for TV. Whether we benefit or not from Pakistan Television (PTV), we have to pay 35 rupees in each electricity bill as a moral duty to keep national television alive. Whether that should be the case with dams is definitely arguable.

https://www.tnn.com.pk/kp-fata-is-likely-to-be-worst-victim-of-climate-change/

Australia lunches 6 Million AUD project to provide reproductive health support to Afghan Refugees Women in Pakistan's Border Region

Tayyeb Afridi 

PESHAWAR: Australian Ambassador for Women and Girls Dr Sharman Stone says there can’t be any honour in killing anybody in the name of honor particularly women and girls.                  

Source: There can't be any honor in killing women and girls in the name of honor

“Any murdering of individual whether it’s your daughter, your neighbour, someone you know and someone you don’t know, we don’t call it honour. There is no honour in killing anybody. We call it murder!” Dr Stone said in an exclusive interview with TNN.

Dr Stone, a former member of Australian parliament, who was on a three-day visit to Islamabad, launched a $6 million Australian Dollars’ project ‘Saving Lives of Women and Girls in Cross Border Area in Pakistan’ and also the gender-based strategy for the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) in Pakistan.

Dr Stone is Australia’s third ambassador for women and girls. Her job is to go through Indo-Asia-pacific region which maybe called Australia’s neighbourhood, where she work with number of countries like Pakistan to pursue  shared goals such as greater equity and economic opportunities for women and girls.

“So here in Pakistan we have lot of grant moneys for example for schools and these are girls’ schools. I visited two schools – all girls – one we built with lot of classrooms and equipment and so on to try make sure the girls have the same opportunities to go to school and to excel as boys. I know we share this goal with Pakistani’s government itself whose constitution talks about equity for all,” she said.

To a question regarding culture difference,Dr Stone said that indeed we have very different countries in terms of culture, but we have very similar colonial background.“So we do understand each other. We both love cricket. We both have very dry countries and needing water. We feel partnering with Pakistan to help make sure women have greater equity, economic opportunity, reducing gender-based violence. These are the same goals we have it for ourselves in Australia. Perhaps we can all make this world a better place,” she said.

To a question about women’s reproductive health, she said if a woman and husband cannot manage how many children they have, the spaces between their children, they can end up with women being too many babies and the resources simply run out.

“There may not be enough food or enough piece of security to have very large families. We know that access to family planning in 21st century is not a difficult thing. We have lot of products and services that can help man and woman have access to family planning. It safeguards the health of mother and the children and off-course now Pakistan has got a huge population of over 200 million,” she said.

She mentioned that Australia was a huge country but it is mostly desert, so it watches out population very carefully. About the healthcare project for Afghan women in Pakistan’s border region, she said Australia is working in partnership with Pakistani government and United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to reach out afghan women living in FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“The idea is for work in these border regions where a lot of families have had conflict, disruption of their lives and have had to be displaced from their homes and they’re not living in safe and suitable accommodations, so this 6 million (AUD) is to help with family planning, health support, and also to make sure if that woman is looking for family planning she doesn’t have to go too far, she doesn’t have to spend a lot of money, we want to help those families on the ground where they face real trauma,” she said.

While responding to a question about intervention strategy, Dr Stone said the UNFPA is very experienced in its work. “What we always make sure we do is to work with local people, local midwives, local health service professionals, because they are on the ground and trusted by the local families. So off-course we have to work closely with local people,” she said.

To a question about challenges for women to enter politics, she said that in democracies such as Pakistan or Australia, it is not easy to be elected, whether a man or woman, older or young. But for women it is especially challenging.She said that In Pakistan, the women ratio in the parliament is 3 or so percent because people have elected 8 women on contest seats . In Asia-Pacific, the average is about seven or so women in the parliament. In the northern hemisphere, we are looking at 30 to 40 percent of the average number of women in the parliament. Australia is only about 27 to 30 percent of women in the parliament. We are not doing well enough because our goal is to see as many women in the parliament as men, which is 50/50.

Dr Stone said democracy needs to represent its people. She said half of the people in Pakistan and Australia are women. “So why wouldn’t you have fifty percent women in the parliament? Now obviously we are long way from it. Women often have to convince men that they have place in the parliament. It’s not a tradition to see women in the parliament. Women often too have a lot of other roles like child responsibility, from caring perhaps the aging parents, to disabled ones,” she said.

In Australia, she said, child care is very expensive so for women who’s got young children going to parliament is difficult, fund raising for women to campaign is more difficult than man usually.

“So far all those reasons, it is hard but that doesn’t mean that women shouldn’t keep persisting and just coming from the school this morning some of the brightest young women in those schools who were school leaders were saying we want to be politician,” she said.

She said the young women are the future of Pakistan. And as is case in Australia, the young women finishing the secondary schooling want to be women in the parliament and that is magnificent. The democracies will be much better when they have got more women in the parliament. It’s about partnering for democracy and not as a woman overtaking man,” she concluded.