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When: 25th February, 2021
What time: 10:00AM to 12:00PM (Pakistan Standard Time)
Where: ZOOM – Link to be shared with registered participants – Register Now
Language: Urdu
How long: 2 hours
Who it is for: Pakistan-based NGOs interested in registration with the Economic Affairs Division (EAD)
Format: Presentations and Discussion

Webinar Objectives:

  • Navigate through the processes and procedures of signing an MOU with EAD in Pakistan
  • Explore the scope and nature of support available to NGOs under the CWSA NGO Help Facility
  • Ensure organisations understand the process and procedures for NTN and Commissioner Inland revenue registration

Speakers:

Ms. Adeela Bukhari – Joint Secretary NGOS/INGOs — Ministry of Economic Affairs
Ms. Sofia Noreen – Legal Advisor – NGO Help Facility, Community World Service Asia
Mr. Joseph Masih – Technical Advisor – NGO Help Facility, Community World Service Asia

Background

Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Pakistan, especially those working at the grass-root level, find it difficult to navigate through regulatory frameworks at times due to a lack of understanding of government procedures and requirements. The regulatory information is at times complex and technical in nature. Therefore, a need to simplify the information, develop guidance notes for the documentations and advice on how to do follow-up on their application has arisen.

It is critical for all NGOs, small or large, to sign an MOU with the Economic Affairs Division in Pakistan to receive funding and implement projects across Pakistan. The process for the registration with EAD and then the reporting procedures including the submission of Annual Plan of Actions, NOCs for projects and biannual reporting requirements are difficult to fully comprehend for NGOs of all type and scale.

To help overcome this, CWSA is providing practical assistance to local and national NGOs in Pakistan that require assistance with any of the processes and procedural requirements for application to the EAD.

CWSA has established an “NGO Help Facility” for technical discussion, coaching, sharing on-line information resources and virtual clinics to support NGOs intending to file their applications and sign MOUs with the EAD. The help facility will also support organisations in understanding the reporting requirements of the EAD.

This service is facilitative and free of cost. CWSA will help to clarify application guidelines, support organisations to develop complete application documentation as per EAD requirements, and, provide guidance for any needed follow up. Activities offered by the NGO Help Facility will include the following:

  • Advisory sessions/ days for NGOs
  • Webinars on EAD Process and Procedures
  • Creation of a center within CWSA, available to any and all NGOs on demand
  • Provision of training and coaching to NGO representatives to support development, revision and follow up of their application documentation

Disclaimer: Assistance provided through the NGO Help Facility is a pro bono service that offers technical support and brokers positive relationships. Engagement, in itself, does not guarantee that the client organisation will be granted an MOU without having successfully completed all of EAD’s required due diligence processes. CWSA mandate is to support the local NGOs in understanding the process and procedures for the MOU with EAD and ensure complete documentation to avoid unnecessary delays due to incomplete documentations.

Interested in Participating? Register here for the Webinar!

Community World Service Asia is a Pakistani humanitarian and development organisation addressing factors that divide people by promoting inclusiveness, shared values, diversity, and interdependence. It engages in the self-implementation of projects, cooperation through partners, and the provision of capacity building trainings and resources at the national, regional and global levels.

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Saba, 25, resides with her eight-member family in Mohallah Railway station at Pithoro Taluka[1]. Her home is three kilometers away from Community World Service Asia’s health center in Pithoro of Umerkot District. Saba was in her third trimester in November 2020.

“My husband worked in a textile company as part of the skilled labor before he lost his job amid COVID-19 and was earning PKR-15,000/month. In August 2020, he was diagnosed with Hepatitis. It has been difficult to make ends meet, as my husband was the sole bread earner. We had to take loan from relative to keep our livelihoods going.”

Diarrhea, Tuberculosis (TB), Hepatitis, skin infections and malnutrition are some of the more common health problems reported among communities in Pithoro. During Covid-19 it was very difficult for these rural communities to access medicine and other health services as most humanitarian organisations were unable to operate due to strict restrictions or closures of offices.

“I was able to visit the health facility for checkups as the women medical staff at the Mother Neonatal Child Health Centre is very comforting and efficient in healthcare delivery.”

Saba visited CWSA’s health facility with her sister-in-law for the first time in her first trimester.

“I was so pleased with the health services. The medical doctor conducted a thorough check-up and prescribed some medicines, which I easily got from the pharmacy free of cost. The medical team also gave a health session to maintain a healthy diet and shared a diet plan for me to follow. I strictly follow the plan and it has been very beneficial in terms of health. I did not feel weak or tired throughout my pregnancy period.”

Saba has to face some challenges due to the unavailability of laboratory services in the health facility.

“We have to travel to Mirpurkhas for blood tests, Ultrasound, Hepatitis, Urine-DR and blood CP. Moreover, the tests can be expensive with one blood test costing up to PKR 1500 (Approx. USD 9) in the district’s laboratory. People in my neighborhood do not have sufficient income to manage their household expenses. For this reason, we cannot afford additional expenses of healthcare at quality medical facilities.”

ⁱ A tehsil (of taluka) is an administrative division in some countries of the Indian subcontinent that is usually translated to “township”.

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“Four years ago, my husband died of a heart attack. Since then, I have been supporting my family and trying to make ends meet. My embroidery and sewing skills help me earn PKR 700 a week (Approx. USD 4), and that is only when we receive regular orders. This is the only source of income for my three children and me,” shared Jatni.

Thirty-five-year-old Jatni and her three young children live in Ramsar village located in district Umerkot of Sindh (Pakistan), where they own a small piece of land and two goats. Jatni and her husband used their four acres of land next to their village to grow Guar[1] and Mung[2] on. After her husband’s passing away, Jatni continued with the farming activities on the land when she would be free from her hand-crafting work. She would sell the surplus produce to earn some extra income for her family. However, this year, despite being free from her handicrafts work since she barely received any orders due to COVID-19, Jatni was unable to grow any crop on her farming land due to locust infestations.

Since June 2019, the locust outbreak has been impacting eastern Pakistan. A plague of locusts hit Pakistan in February 2020, devouring crops, trees, and pasture as they moved through vast agricultural lands in Sindh and Punjab. According to the National Disaster Management Authority, 61 districts across the country are under attack from locusts, which have been damaging food crops. Pakistan incurred losses estimated to £2bn in winter crops, such as wheat, and is further expected to suffer another £2.3bn in the summer crops being planted now, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in May 2020.

“The situation in Ramsar was worrisome. All the villagers were in a difficult situation because of the devastation the locusts had brought to agricultural production. Our food security was badly affected as the large swarms moved through the lands.”

Ramsar’s village committee, in collaboration with Community World Service Asia’s (CWSA) emergency team, selected Jatni as a cash grant recipient of PKR 13500 (Approx. USD 84) under an emergency response project supported by Japan Platform.  The project aimed to help 1600 locust affected farming families recover through cash assistance for livelihoods and provision of insecticides to fight off the locust swarms infecting their lands. Additionally, pesticides was provided to the National Disaster Management Authority in June 2020 for locust control. In Umerkot district, 867 hectare of lands were applied with the provided pesticides by Agriculture Department, protecting crops from locusts, pests, diseases and weeds as well as raising productivity per hectare.

Jatni used the cash received under the project in the tillage operation conducted to recover from the locust attacks.

“The tillage carried out in the last week of June helped me recover and prepare the land for cultivation. The land is now sowed with our usual Guar and Mung seeds. I am hopeful that we will have a substantial harvest by the end of the season to sell in the local market. The money I will earn from selling the surplus will help us purchase a variety of groceries that will last us a good six-months.”

[1] Guar is an important legume crop. It is cultivated for fodder as well as for grain purpose.
[2] The mung bean, alternatively known as the green gram, mash, or moong, is a plant species in the legume family.

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“For years, I have been chopping wood and selling it in the local market known as Pithoro Market. The COVID-19 lead lockdown imposed in our district minimised work opportunities for many of us. Market places had been shut down and people stayed indoors with no opportunity for businesses to operate or grow. Consequently, I was also unable to sell the wood and earn any sort of income. To further add to our worries, we also lost our home during the heavy rains in August (2020). Our house was made of mud and was fragile. We were forced to move out of the village as most of the village was flooded with rainwater. To survive, we built a tent near the main road on a nearby higher ground as a temporary shelter. We have been living here for weeks now. We plan to rebuild our home as soon as the land dries out and return to our village.”

Jarviz is a father to five children and belongs to a remote village named Saint John Colony, located in Talka[1] Pithoro in district Umerkot of Sindh. He is the sole breadwinner for his family despite being physically disabled due to polio at a very young age. Before COVID-19 hit the country, Jarviz earned PKR 200 daily (approx. USD 1) which was not quite sufficient to cover all the needs and expenses of his family of seven (including himself) but the family stayed together and lived on a day to day basis. Jarviz has been a strong man and always helpful towards everyone he knew and is therefore an inspirational member of the community’s Village Committee for over a year now.

“I have been a member of Saint John Colony’s Village Committee (VC) since its formation in August 2019. We are ten members in total with equal numbers of both genders. The committee is formed to ensure community participation and facilitate Community World Service Asia’s (CWSA) health project team in project planning, implementation, and coordination with government line departments and other NGOs. The main objective is to address the problems and needs of the community together. As an active member, I have been involved in conducting health sessions and organising free medical health camps with the project team in remote villages in the area,” shared Jarviz Masih. 

Jarviz also remotely took part in the health sessions conducted by CWSA’s health team on COVID-19 safety in May and June 2020, under its health program.

“The sessions sensitised me on social distancing, hand washing, using protective gear and avoiding public gathering to eliminate the transmission of the virus. In addition, the team held sessions on family planning and health and hygiene. One of the key purposes of these sessions were for VC members to replicate the teachings in our communities to make communities aware on COVID-19 preventive and safety measures as much as possible. I myself delivered sessions sensitising 157 people in my village in the following two months. The health team has been continuously providing remote counselling and educating us on accessing Taluka hospitals in case of emergency or other general health issues.”

“In one instance, a woman in our neighborhood delivered a baby at home in an emergency. After her delivery, due to high blood pressure, she suffered from fits. I immediately contacted the health team and they advised us to immediately head towards the THQ[2] Pithoro, as the medical staff of the government was available there. The paramedic in Pithoro referred the women to the Female Medical Officer in Mirpurkhas hospital. The timely counselling and consultations benefitted and the woman was safely and immediately admitted to the hospital and is being treated well,” narrated Jarviz.

As a humanitarian response to the COVID-19 crisis, Community World Service Asia (CWSA), with support of United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), implemented a project addressing the immediate needs of affected communities in Umerkot district in Sindh province of Pakistan. Jarviz was selected as a participant of this project.

“A cash assistance of PKR 24,000 was provided to me and my family in two installments in the months of August and September 2020. With the money received, I purchased groceries for my family to put food on the table. In addition, I bought some clothes and crockery items for my daughter as her wedding is planned in a month’s time. The assistance was very beneficial and timely for me and my family.”

[1] A tehsil (of taluka) is an administrative division in some countries of the Indian subcontinent that is usually translated to “township”.

[2] Taluka Headquarters

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Under the Enhancing disaster resilience against droughts in Sindh Province project, supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Japan,[1]  eight Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) committees have been set up in eight villages, with fifteen members in each. Established in April 2019, the committees work towards strengthening the local community’s capacity to manage emergencies and collaborate with government agencies and relevant authorities to reduce risks during emergencies. These DRR committees play a pivotal role in facilitating the implementation and oversight of the project and to ensure community ownership and inclusion to maintain its long-term sustainability.

As physical interaction and implementation of any kind was not possible after the nation-wide lockdown imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the country since March, Community World Service Asia’s DRR team got in touch with the members of the committees through mobile phones. Together they discussed ways of raising community awareness on COVID-19 symptoms and how to stay safe from it. Upon agreement, training sessions with the DRR committees were planned and conducted in April 2020.

Haji Chanesar village in Umerkot district was one of the selected areas and five members of its DRR Committee were part of the remote training session. They were informed about what communities should be doing to be prepared to respond to a case, how to identify a case once it occurs, and how to properly implement the preventive measures to ensure there is no further transmission of the virus.

Prem, 28, is married and a father to three children. After completing his intermediate, he was engaged in different volunteer work as he had grave interest in helping others. As a member of the DRR Committee, he looks after and operates the RO plant established in the village and also supports in the implementation of the project activities. Prem, who is an active member of the DRR Committee of Haji Chanesar village was one of the participants in this training.

The trained members of the committee then replicated the learnings separately in a number of neighbouring villages. Over two hundred local community members were introduced to information on COVID-19 and learnt basic hygiene measures to protect against the infection. By the end of these awareness sessions, communities were able to identify basic symptoms of coronavirus, common transmission channels, how to assess the risk of infection and key preventive measures.

An isolation room was established in Haji Chanesar, in case anyone is infected or is suspicious of being infected. The sessions alerted the villagers and they followed all SOPs[2] strictly especially at homes.

“In my home, none of my children go out to play nor does my wife socialize with her friends or family. We have limited our external activities, and we only go out when food or important household commodities need to be purchased. We have been fortunate till date as no case of coronavirus has come up. To prevent the spread of the virus in our area, we remain secure at home and maintain physical distance,” Prem concluded positively.

[1] Disaster Risk Reduction
[2] Standard of Procedures

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Mohan Maghwar, 35, lives with his wife and three children of seven & five years while little one is of three months old, in the remote village of Rantnor, located in the Thar Desertⁱ in the south of Pakistan. All kinds of natural life here is dependent on the annual rainwater. Rantnor is deprived of most basic survival facilities including healthcare, electricity, clean drinking water or sufficient livelihood sources.

Earning an income through traditional Sindhi cap weaving and manufacturing, Mohan was the sole breadwinner for his growing family. His wife would also help him with the weaving. He would receive many orders from the local markets and neighbouring buyers for which Mohan would buy raw materials and work on a fortnightly basis and then sell the finished product providing him a comfortable means to sustain his family. However, as COVID-19 struck the country, he soon lost his only source of livelihood.

“Our lives were going fine before the coronavirus came in the country and the national lockdown was imposed. Before the pandemic, I was earning up to PKR 600 (approx. USD 4) on every cap my wife and I produced. Sadly, our work was suspended because of closure of markets and restrictions on gatherings. There were no orders to work on and no money to earn due to limited or no work opportunities. I was worried about making ends meet without any source of income.”

As a humanitarian response to the COVID-19 crisis, Community World Service Asia (CWSA), with support of United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR), is implementing a project addressing the immediate needs of drought affected communities in Umerkot. Through the project, 1,206 families will be provided with two cash grants, each of PKR 12,000 (approx. USD $ 75/-) in September through mobile cash transfer services. This cash assistance is aimed at addressing the food insecurity caused by drought, repeated locust-attacks and the economic implications of COVID-19 on the most vulnerable communities in remote areas of Sindh.

Rantnor was among the project’s target villages due as the family’s livelihoods was severely affected by the lockdown amid COVID-19 and drought. CWSA’s team identified Mohan and his family as project pariticpant of this humanitarian response as they were most affected by not only COVID-19 but other natural and climate induced crises as well.  Mohan received two rounds of cash assistances of PKR 12000 each (Approx. USD 75) in August and October 2020.

“With the money received, I purchased groceries and invested some money in a business and established a small enterprise shop at home, as I have marketing experience and utilized the cash assistance in creating a livelihood opportunity.”

ⁱ 55kilometers from Pakistan’s Umerkot District

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Dr. Mohammad Shafi, a doctor and development practitioner with over two decades of experience in the social welfare sector, participated in a training titled “Influencing Positive Change” organised by Community World Service Asia under its Capacity Enhancement Program. The program aims to strengthen the capacity of local humanitarian and development workers on organizational, programmatic and technical skills while responding to the needs of the most vulnerable in Pakistan.

The “Influencing Positive Change” training was conducted in December 2019 and was participated by twenty-one aid and development workers representing twelve civil society organisations (CSOs) from across Pakistan. During the five-day training, participants strengthened their knowledge and skills on developing strategic approaches to policy engagement and designing campaigns for social change through policy reforms.

Employed with Brooke Hospital for Animals Pakistan since 1997 as a Regional Manager, Dr. Mohammad Shafi has been working for the welfare of horses, mules and donkeys engaged in intensive labour work of the many thousands of people and communities dependent on their service.

“I monitor and mentor the field activities of the project teams. I also work to ensure animal welfare, community development and monitor proper planning of capacity enhancement activities of the communities we work with in coordination with key stakeholders.”

“Our company was well aware of the good quality and value of the workshops conducted by Community World Service Asia in various operational fields for local and national organisations. Upon hearing of this training on ‘Influencing Positive Change’, I showed immediate interest and applied as a participant. The session on engaging with decision makers, as part of the training, was something new and interesting for me as it provided thorough knowledge on different advocacy strategies and tools for effective engagement with various stakeholders. The group exercise on stakeholders mapping was also very informative and a rich learning experience. After the trainings, I replicated the same exercise in mapping joint ventures when we planned the signing of a MoU with one of partners, the Bahauddin Zakariya University. We successfully signed the MoU on September 1, 2020.”

The significance and value of objective setting and identifying key stakeholders and influencers prior to the implementation of a campaign was another key highlight of the training.

“We are now able to define priorities for our organizational awareness-building activities. In terms of improved comprehension and application of science, we appear to have more effective outcomes now. We have started working with relevant partners, with whom we can collaborate together on promoting equine health. We also successfully signed a MoU with the Bahauddin Zakariya University (BZU) to strengthen equine health and welfare knowledge and skills of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine (DVM) students and allied domain. This MoU will fortify the role of veterinary science facilities of BZU as the hub for animal welfare excellence and encourage animal welfare.”

Shafi said that the pre-preparation assignments conducted during the training helped the organisation’s teams to examine and obtain relevant knowledge about the partners with whom they want to work.

“A comprehensive research before our meetings allowed us to convince relevant stakeholders more effectively in order to agree on common grounds for joint ventures,” expressed Shafi

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Quality and Accountability mainstreaming includes promoting and sustaining greater accountability to affected populations and to ensure its effectiveness, changes are required at different levels in the organisation. Hosted and organised by Asian Disaster Reduction and Response Network’s (ADRRN) Quality and Accountability (Q&A) Hub as part of the 2020 Regional NGO Partnership Events[1], a virtual panel discussion held on December 14th, explored the different levels and ways of mainstreaming accountability.

Opening Remark Shama Mall, Regional Director (Acting)
Moderator Uma Narayanan, Independent Consultant
Panelists Mayfourth D. Luneta, Deputy Executive Director, Center for Disaster Preparedness (CDP)
Hiroaki Higuchi, Manager of Program Development Division/M&E division, Japan Platform
Coleen Heemskerk, International Director of Strategic Planning, Act church of Sweden.
Participation 92 humanitarian practitioners from around the world

 “Like for many of you, it’s very important for us that during any response or longer-term engagement, the affected communities are treated with dignity, and they fully participate in the process and hold us to account. Mainstreaming is not a onetime process; rather it is a continuous process. Commitment towards accountability and mainstreaming in our experience means leadership Buy-in, willingness to change behaviors and meaningful engagement and participation at community level,” said Shama Mall from Community World Service Asia, during the introduction of the virtual event.

Accountability: A Way of Life

  • How can we ensure Vertical and Horizontal accountability in an organisation?
  • How can we create a balance between learning and accountability within organisations?

Mayfourth D. Luneta emphasised on not just being accountable in policy but to walk the talk as a key indicator of having better services for communities. Center for Disaster Preparedness’s (CDP) vision is to establish safe, resilient and development communities and they work towards that by empowering and strengthening the people in the community for disaster risk reduction and management.

Organisations must engage in constant consultations and interactions with the communities to ensure to efficient programming and accountability processes. Mayfourth further shared,

“In communities we serve, we adopted different methods to keep a check on how CDP is working with the target affected populations. We mainstreamed these methodologies in our projects to monitor our workings whether or not the project required feedback or MEAL[1] planning. One of the tools known as The Evaluation Tree was carried out during the implementation of projects where community members provided continuous feedback on project activities, strategies, results at individual and community level, facilitating and hindering factors and recommendations. By doing this, we are being mindful of how we deal with our communities.”

How do we promote accountability with our partners and governments?

Organisations must continue to advocate and share lessons learnt with the government and relevant stakeholders for them to improve government programs by applying this data taken from the communities. CDC shared its example of The Inclusive Data Management System for Persons with Disabilities project that promotes the inclusion of persons with disabilities in planning, budgeting, and other development processes of local government and agencies, particularly in Disaster Risk Reduction Management (DRRM). The intended outcome of the project is to increase the capacity of local governments to capture specific information on persons with disabilities in their localities.

“This project collects and records information on disability and DRRM through using the Kobo Collect, an open source Android application used in primary data collection for challenging environments. Ultimately, the intended output of the project is the establishment of a comprehensive data management system for persons with disabilities at the municipal or city level. This project is at its finalization stage and the report will be then shared in the near future,” shared Mayfourth.

Quality & Accountability: Donor Perception

Hiroaki Higuchi discussed the limitations of reporting around accountability to donors and project participants. Typically reporting systems provide donors with a written account comprising of information in a form that ensures that the funds donated are used for specifically intended and planned purposes. This is usually in the form of a one-way flow of information from the NGO to the donor, with the focus being on the efficiency with which the donors’ funds have been spent. In some cases, reporting formats often appear inflexible and rarely reflect the voice and experiences of field officers and communities in the field.

There is a predominant belief that many donors simply use quantified metrics and undermine other valuable qualifications and explanations of local conditions contained in the accompanying narrative.

“There must be somethings behind the quantitative performance indicators that can reflect the overall impact of an NGO’s work by the Qualitative performance indicators. To address this issue, I recommend that there be a mixture of quantitative and qualitative performance indicators. A further recommendation in this area is to allow debates and discussions with NGO workers in the field and communities to help and determine appropriate performance indicators for specific project,” said Hiroaki.

One of the drawbacks of accountability mechanisms is that donors are not informed about the unintended consequences and failures in aspects of project delivery. NGOs often find it challenging to report on such outputs as there is not much flexibility in terms of reporting formats and scope. Hiroaki added,

“There can be reluctance on the donors’ part or on the part of NGO to report unintended consequences or failures. In some cases, NGOs prefer to emphasise on the success rather than the failures in humanitarian projects. I believe in the longer term, these failures can help organisations learn and ensure more sustainable development by recognising and responding to the cause of a short-term failure. Furthermore, reporting of unintended consequences in aspects of project delivery is important as it provides an opportunity to inform donors about what kinds of difficulties the NGOs face on the ground in the field level.”

Ensuring Quality and Accountability at an Organisational Level

Following the example of ACT Church of Sweden (CoS), organisations can effectively mainstream quality and accountability through working towards commitments underlined by the Core Humanitarian Standards (CHS):

  • Commitment 1: Human Rights-Based Approach
  • Commitment 2: Gender Mainstreaming through all Programmes
  • Commitment 3: Environmental Sustainability
  • Commitment 4: Equal & Mutually Accountable Partnership

“We became CHS certified to ensure the affected-communities are at the center of our work. We want to ensure that we have to implement with the commitments we have made as an organisation. We, as an organisation, want to commit to continue learning,” remarked Coleen.

A poll was conducted asking the webinar participants to share CHS requirements that they considered most challenging to achieve.

Forty-three percent of the participants chose complain handling as the most challenging aspect to implement in an organisation. It is a common challenge to address how an organisation ensures that it has an open, accessible complaints mechanism?

Coleen shared, “At CoS, we are continuously working on making our complaint mechanism stronger. We also try to make our annual report transparent by reporting about the number of complaints we receive and types of complaints received.”

Reflections

Participants asked about ways to overcome challenges when donors are not open to receiving or reporting failures and the shift required to change this mindset.

 “It is about educating the donor and not think that donors always have that back information. Sometimes it works, but other times it doesn’t. But to be vocal and to push back is vital, by doing it diplomatically and politely to make sure it happens,” advised Coleen.

There were questions raised on trust and whether organisations are doing enough to garner and sustain that trust among communities. Mayfourth addressed the question by saying,

“When we say are we doing enough, I believe its means how we are doing it together with the community. The more we involve the affected-communities in the processes, as well as project interventions, the more we are contributing to the communities. This makes them feel that they are at center of planning, implementation and assessments processes. It is very important for organisations to know for whom they are working for as this will help the project teams to feel the gaps and needs of communities which have to be catered through the interventions.”

Many of the participants also asked about how to truly embed accountability in an organisation’s core values.

“Instead of saying we are implementing the CHS commitments, we have changed this and said that these are our commitments that Act CoS signs on to. We have built them in our policies and programmes.  It is also important that management be continuously questioned on whether or not the commitments are being met as an organisation. For us in Act CoS, we believe in localization and so we are working on how to make this possible in the coming five to ten years. It is about going back to the basics. When we talk about Codes of Conduct, it’s about being a decent person, when we talk about accountability, it’s about doing quality programming.”

“You journey towards accountability is not easy and time consuming, but when we see an increase in personal accountability and if there are questions raised within the organisation about these issues, then we are moving in the right direction,” concluded Uma.

[1] Hosted in collaboration by the Asian Disaster Reduction and Response Network (ADRRN), International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and Community World Service Asia.

[2] Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability and Learning.

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Iqbal Mai, is a widow and a single mother of three children who lives in and belongs to Bait village of Punjab province. Bait village is home to almost a hundred families who primarily depend on farming activities for a livelihood. Iqbal Mai’s children, aged between 18 and 12 years, help her with sowing, harvesting, fertilisation and irrigation activities in the agricultural fields.

Mai’s husband was also a farmer who tragically passed away after suffering a cardiac arrest in 2014.

“After the demise of my husband, I had to take all the responsibility of caring for my children and home. The tragedy that was my husband’s death however did not lessen my hopes and determination of giving a better future to my children. I started to work on the fields; ploughing the lands, sowing the seeds, irrigating the lands and harvesting the crops. I strongly believe that literacy is critical to having a chance of a better future. I see it as something that will guide my children towards a brighter future and an improved standard of living,” shared Iqbal Mai.

Fifty-seven-year-old Mai manages to send her all children to a nearby local school through the income she has been earning from agricultural farming.

Through cultivation of wheat and cotton on a two-and-a-half-acre self-owned land, Mai earns an annual income of PKR 50,000 (Approx. USD 310). Cotton is assumed as one of the main cash crops in Punjab province which is the most Agri-enriched region of the country and contributes to 22% of the country’s total agri-business. The seasonal crops cultivated in Bait are irrigated with available canal channels and the river Chenab, which is a major source of water in the region.

To prepare the land for harvest season, Iqbal Mai took a loan of PKR 30,000 (Approx. USD 186) from a well-know landlord in their village. She took the loan to prepare the land to grow wheat.

“Last year, the wheat growing on the lands was severely damaged due to wheat leaf rustⁱ. I had no other option but to take a loan to prepare the land for the next harvest season. I rented a tractor for PKR 10,000 and also paid a tube well owner PKR 10,000 to provide water. The remaining amount was consumed on labor costs for ploughing the land. Sadly, all the harvest was lost.” The recent locust invasion on the agricultural lands in South Punjab destroyed acres of agricultural land including Iqbal Mai’s little livelihood source. “We tried all the indigenous techniques to get rid of the locusts such as waving rackets on the fields and using smoke to clear out the locusts, but nothing helped. All our hard work on the field was wasted in front of our eyes. We were unable to save our harvest and had no crops to sell.”

Community World Service Asia’s Emergency response team visited Bait village for an initial assessment to select the most vulnerable and underprivileged small-scale farmers affected by the locust attacks in the area for a short-term humanitarian project[1]. Iqbal Mai was selected as a project participant. Through the project she received two bags of 50 kgs of wheat seeds each, two bags of DAP fertilizer of 50kgs each and four bags of UREA fertilizer of 50kgs each. She plough the land with wheat seeds and is actively using the fertilizers to enhance the natural fertility of the soil.  Mai was also part of awareness raising, orientation and capacity enhancement sessions on learning skills and expertise about wheat cultivation techniques required to maximize yields in April and May 2020. Mai’s hopes are very high this year as she is positive to have rich and healthy crops at the end of harvest season in May 2021.

ⁱ Leaf rust, also known as brown rust, is caused by the fungus Puccinia triticina. This rust disease occurs wherever wheat, barley and other cereal crops are grown.

ⁱⁱ Livelihood Support to Small Agriculture Farmers affected by locust attack in the Punjab province project, implemented by Community World Service Asia and funded by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

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