ISLAMABAD: The World Bank has rated the overall implementation progress of the Pakistan Community Support Project (CASA-1000) as moderately satisfactory while progress towards achievement of the Project Development Objective (PDO) as satisfactory.
The project was approved in 2020 with a cost of $15 million, envisaging to improve access to local infrastructure and strengthen community engagement in the project areas.
The project has closed on 30th September as per the revised project end date. Of the total Intermediate Results Indicators (for the project are total 27), 23 (85%) have been achieved or overachieved by the project.
Operationalisation: World Bank to extend additional financing for CASA-1000
Under Component 1 (Community Outreach and Communications for CASA-1000), over 400 community outreach and communications activities (surpassing the RF target of 100) were completed, successfully disseminating the benefits of CASA 1000 to the country and the local population.
As such, the vision of the Communication Strategy of the PCSP was realized. Component 2 (Community Mobilization and Capacity Building), established effective Community Development Councils (CDCs) with women and youth participation across all villages in the corridor, in minimum possible time.
Community Development Plans (CDPs), developed by the local communities prioritized their development needs, and its submission to the elected Village Councils, will result in sustained benefit sharing.
Monitoring of CDC activities and citizen feedback surveys indicated that the CDCs continuously prioritized local development issues and reported an increased voice in local decision making due to the project.
Under Component 3 (Community Investments in Small Infrastructure Schemes), all community infrastructure constructed by the CDCs was in line with the local development priorities identified in the CDPs.
Total 144 (out of 165) community infrastructure sub-projects have been completed by the CDCs themselves till end of the Project. Community contribution to the schemes is present across the corridor, and O&M Committees have been set up under each CDC for the operation and maintenance of the completed schemes.
This not only ensured improved access to local infrastructure through community engagement, but also enabled the communities with platforms to demand improvement in service delivery (evident in their meetings with the local Village Councils).
Citizen centric accountability was applied under Component 4 (Project Management, Implementation, and Monitoring and Evaluation), where community monitoring in scheme implementation was reported through Participatory Monitoring Committees set up in each village. 94% of the PMC (not a member of CDC) conducted Social Audits and Community Scorecards of their sub-projects. In summary, the Project was able to satisfactorily achieve most of the results as anticipated under the theory of change.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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