Pakistan is confronting a multifaceted crisis of the human condition. The government is facing financial bankruptcy, the real economy is in deep recession, poverty has reached alarming levels and the institutions of governance have reached a critical point despite last year elections. The conflict is spreading in the western part of the country leading to massive displacements of population, while the security situation is extremely tense and the humanitarian space scarce.
Program Information
Humanitarian Context
In 2008 Pakistan suffered a series of overlapping crises that led to substantial internal displacement and left hundreds of thousands in need of humanitarian assistance (floods and conflict). These events have come at a time when Pakistan is reeling from the effects of the global food crisis, exacerbating an already precarious situation.
In the southern part of the Sindh province, high investments on inappropriate agricultural inputs, poor returns on agricultural activities and high health care costs due to the high incidence of waterborne diseases have created low standards of living for coastal farmers in the district of Thatta. As a result more small farmers and tenants are dependent on loans not only to procure agricultural inputs to sustain their livelihood activities but also for daily food items and healthcare. Underlying causes of the poverty cycle include irreversible salination of agricultural areas, high dependency on inappropriate and untested seeds, nonexistence of physical or formal wholesale market for agricultural produce, unsafe drinking water sources.
Area(s) of Work
- Introduction of saline tolerant seeds and seed saving techniques
- Improved agricultural techniques training and on-farm natural resource management
- Reenforcement of agricultural wholesale markets
- Cooperative marketing of agricultural products
- Livelihood surveys
- Provision of the most appropriate cost effective desalination units
- Provision of renewed access to boreholes turned saline
