Pakistan
WaterAid works in collaboration with ten local organizations in Pakistan to improve the lives of people living in the sprawling, unplanned slum areas surrounding Pakistan's major urban centers. WaterAid's work helps poor communities in Karachi, Faisalabad, Rawalpindi, Uch, Lodhran, Multan and Mingora to gain access to sanitation.
Unrest following the death of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007 has disrupted some of WaterAid's work there, due to street violence and power shortages. As the country slowly returns to normal, our staff are resuming work in a cautious manner, minimizing the risk to personal safety by avoiding congested areas, and planning to undertake activities when gas and electricity are available.
WaterAid has funded work in Pakistan since 1993, when work began to help remote, rural communities in the North West Frontier Province gain access to clean water and sanitation.
In 1996 the focus of the program changed to address the urgent need for sanitation in urban slums.
In urban areas open sewers filled with human waste and garbage wind their way through the crowded narrow lanes and passageways. Children play alongside pools of stagnant, putrid water. The result is prolific malaria and diarrheal diseases, that are indiscriminate and silent killers.
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| Children playing near sewage in Azamabad district, Pakistan. |
| Credit: WaterAid / Martin Punaks |
The first urban intervention WaterAid supported was the Orangi Pilot Project (OPP) in Karachi, an innovative community-led urban engineering project that empowers communities at street level to finance, construct and manage their own underground sewerage systems which feed into mains sewers provided by the municipal authorities.
The role of OPP is to facilitate dialogue between the city authorities and the communities as well as to provide training and technical guidance to the authorities and community members.
The OPP does not fund development projects nor does it provide tools or equipment. Yet through work to unlock communities' own potential, it has now developed into a highly successful large-scale program that has enabled well over one million people to safely dispose of their sewage.
The new sewers have revolutionized life for the community, who previously had to contend with murky, stinking open sewers crisscrossing the settlement.
Using the lessons and experience developed with OPP, WaterAid expanded its work helping slum communities to provide the financing, labor and management of street level sewers, to the five other cities listed above.
The Pakistan program is one of the key areas for WaterAid's urban work and has provided a wealth of invaluable experience for other players in Pakistan and other urban water and sanitation programs across Asia and Africa.
As a result of the success of the Orangi Pilot Project the Government of Pakistan is altering its policy on water and sanitation and is putting much greater emphasis on decentralizing its administration and encouraging community participation and education.
In May 2006 WaterAid consolidated its presence in Pakistan with the opening of a long awaited country office. We are now planning to continue working with our urban partners but also to expand again into rural areas and play a leading role in influencing decisions over the country's water and sanitation policies.
Lessons from the OPP are documented in WaterAid's report From the lane to city ( PDF File 627K).
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Pakistan
Sources:
Human Development Report 2006, World Development Report 2006
NB. Official statistics tend to understate the extent of water and sanitation problems, sometimes by a large factor. There are not sufficient resources available for accurate monitoring of either population or coverage. Varying definitions of water and sanitation coverage are used and national figures mask large regional differences in coverage.
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