Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency (Sida) and UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) have entered into a $6,491,712 million partnership with Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (Erra) and its partners for restoring livelihoods in the earthquake-affected areas of Pakistan.
The project basically assists 'Livelihood Restoration Programme' for the earthquake-affected communities. The partnership was sealed recently in a ceremony which was attended by General Nadeem Ahmad, Deputy Chairman Erra, Mohammad Burate Farah, FAO representative and the other senior officials from Erra and UN and the project is funded by the government of Sweden.
Farah, in his speech on the occasion, said that the assistance will play a critical role in enhancing agriculture and livestock activities of the affected population in order to ensure their food security in the long term. The projects effective implementation will be crucial for the sustainability of vulnerable rural household economies.
General Nadeem Ahmad observed that the livelihood rehabilitation programme is people-based and it will assist in building the capacity of the partners for implementation of the livelihood rehabilitation strategy and it will assist the government to re-establish agricultural support and will rehabilitate rural infrastructure for facilitating increased agricultural production, diversification and marketing.
The project comes under Erra' overall Livelihood Rehabilitation Strategy and its objective is to strengthen Erra as an institution together with its implementing partners to sustain improved rural support services by Erras' implementing partners in the earthquake affected areas of Azad Kashmir and NWFP and to adopt integrated and collaborative watershed management approaches to environmental protection and poverty reduction by the stakeholders of denuded hillsides and areas seriously affected by landslips.
It is estimated that some 500 managers and technicians from Erra and Government of Pakistan line departments representing livelihood related sectors, sub sectors as agriculture, livestock, food, forestry, social welfare, labour, health and education in Azad Kashmir and NWFP provincial government and district level will benefit from training in sustainable livelihoods project cycle management and related subjects provided by the project.
It is expected that a similar number of managers and technicians from national and international non-governmental organisations, civil society organisations, academic institutions and private sector companies providing rural support services in the nine earthquake-affected districts should also benefit from the projects' training interventions.
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