Pakistan

Covering an area of 796,000km² Pakistan is bordered by Iran and Afghanistan, China, India and the Arabian Sea. The land is geographically diverse, including snow capped mountains, plateaus, rivers, flood and arid plains, a variety of forests, deserts, lakes, swamps and a stretch of coastline.

We started funding work in Pakistan in 1993 working on rural sanitation in the North West Frontier Province. Then in 1995 WaterAid provided a small grant to the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) for work in Karachi.

In 1996 the programme changed to one solely supporting local urban partners and it now supports ten partners in Karachi, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Uch, Lodhran, Multan and Mingora working with communities to provide water, sanitation and hygiene education. As such the work in Pakistan is one of the key areas for WaterAid's urban work and has provided a wealth of invaluable experience.

Children playing near sewage in Azamabad district, Pakistan.

Credit: WaterAid / Martin Punaks

Much of this research and experience has come from the OPP. WaterAid supports the Orangi Pilot Project in constructing and improving sewers in low-income areas of Karachi. The OPP is a remarkable self-funded, self-administered and self-maintained grassroots movement whose urban poor constituents build hundreds of kilometres of extremely low cost underground sewers using local materials and labour.

The new sewers have revolutionised life for the community, who previously had to contend with murky, stinking open sewers crisscrossing the settlement and posing considerable health and physical hazards to its residents. Lessons from the OPP are documented in WaterAid's report From the lane to the city.

The OPP is sharing its learning with our other partner organisations including Anjuman Samaji Behbood (ASB) which have replicated the OPP's approach in Faisalabad.

Here, through negotiations with the city's sewage and water authority the community have financed and managed both water supplies, local sewers and also secondary sewers that have linked their supplies to the cities main drainage - the first project of its kind in Pakistan.