Access to safe drinking water and sanitation is a basic human right and essential to people’s health. Rapid urbanization and the growing of its informal settlements are overwhelming traditional water management practices, placing water scarcity as a potential source of social and political conflicts. An integrated approach to urban water supply and sanitation management is essential for the social, economic and environmental sustainability of cities.
This project aims at facilitating access to water and sanitation for urban women in six informal settlements in its first phase, thereby improving their quality of life and freeing more time for women to engage in other social and economic activities.
The Project activities have started in the pockets of extreme urban poverty in four cities: Rawalpindi in collaboration with Friends Foundation, Hyderabad in collaboration with Sindh Agricultural and Forestry Workers Coordinating Organization (SAFWCO), Muzaffarabad in collaboration with a consortium of NGOs (Sungi, Children First and Saiban) led by Sungi and in Islamabad in collaboration with Plan. Most of the targeted slums in these cities inhabit extreme poor minorities and refugees. UN-HABITAT is also starting the project activities in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Gilgit in coming months, thereby completing the targeted figure of ‘6 informal settlements in 6 different cities of Pakistan’ in the first phase. The project will also be extended to target informal settlements in ten other selected cities located in Balochistan, Sindh , North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Punjab, to bring the total of all the targeted cities in Pakistan to sixteen.
Situational analysis and its dissemination through three Regional Workshops and one National Workshop on the topic of ‘Gender Mainstreaming in WASH’, with the collaboration of Pakistan Institute of Environment Development Action Research (PIEDAR), was completed in December 2009. These workshops also helped in capacity building of almost 100 Government officials and the leadership of CSOs in all provinces of Pakistan.
Effort are also being directed to enhance the willingness and commitment of policy makers and water stakeholders and in creating the necessary institutional and human resource capacity to implement pro-poor and gender responsive policies and programmes.
Some of the key elements of this project are:
(a) Assessment of the effective demand of women and communities for water and sanitation services;
(b) Building concrete, project-oriented partnerships between local governments, other service provider agencies and community groups;
(c) Implementing low cost demonstrative projects; and
(d) Improving water policies and implementation strategies.
