Natural Disaster Preparedness and Management (NDPM)

Program Focus 2008-2017

The program aims to provision of quality humanitarian aid, enhanced contingency planning, protecting people who die, fall sick, or suffer deprivation due to direct result of natural disasters and protecting people, who suffer personal or communal violence, forced displacement or armed conflict.

Background

In case of an emergency, AWAZ follows a phased approach. First of all, it continues and initiates emergency response following the humanitarian imperative in order to preserve as many human lives possible. Per disaster, quick decisions are made on added value of AWAZ in relation to seize of the disaster, commitments from other donors and capacity of VDCS. AWAZ pays more attention to develop expertise on water & sanitation & hygiene promotion (WASH). AWAZ sees a more active role for itself in evidence based humanitarian advocacy. The issue of protection of women in crisis is a spearhead in AWAZ programming and advocacy (promoting women friendly spaces) because it was reported during the flood of August 2010 that women were abused during the crises and relief goods distribution.

Second, the ongoing work of building resilient communities and contingency planning with communities and CSOs are initiated for the years to come. Building capacity of vulnerable groups to cope with shocks, especially in disaster prone areas of Pakistan involves both disaster risk reduction (DRR) and asset building. Capacity building trajectories on improving emergency response and drafting district/provincial/national contingency plans for improved coordination with government during crisis situations is also done during the period.

third spearhead is on conflict transformation. Experiences obtained over the years reveal the added value of looking at impact of intervention strategies from this angle and its relation with crisis when it becomes an open conflict. It is aimed to enlarge capacities of communities for conflict reconciliation and mediation towards other stakeholders in the environment. Increasing religious fundamentalism has gained momentum and resulted in open conflicts with a high intensity in Southern Punjab. As from analysis, competition for scarce resources (water), a highly stratified society and a highly disturbed state-citizen relationship are fuelling conflicts at all levels. For this reason, AWAZ not only focuses on open conflicts in specified geographical context,but aims to develop a programmatic approach to reduce intensity of conflict in Pakistan as a whole.