Evaluation Report – Umang (2018-2022)

Evaluating the work of Awaz-CDS established in 1995 it appears they have a passion and record of accomplishment for working on education-particularly girls’ education in Pakistan.  The organization is equally dedicated to realization of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is part of Pakistan Development Alliance-a consortium of CSOs/NGOs. Besides working in Pakistan with rights-based approach amid shrinking spaces, its special consultative status with United Nation’s Economic & Social Council (UN ECOSOC) enables the Awaz-CDS to flag these issues at global forums.

Umang as an Urdu word denotes a strong drive, desire, ambition, passion and enthusiasm for success. Awaz-CDS started implementing Umang project in March 2018 and it ended in June 2022. The project focused on increasing possibilities and enhancing Quality Secondary Education for girls in Punjab with special emphasis on South Punjab.

The project employed multi-pronged strategies to make tangible progress on its objectives. Despite pandemic (COVID-19) that affected the education sector, the project made recognizable achievements. Meaningful engagement with the Legislators in the Provincial Assembly of Punjab and subsequently a successful amendment in the Punjab Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2014 could be regarded as the significant achievement. This may open up possibilities to improve the Right to Education laws in other federal jurisdictions. The Federal Free and Compulsory Education Act that is for the Islamabad Capital Territory contains similar hampering sections.

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Case study Right step towards the institutional strengthening for girls right to quality secondary education in Punjab

Driven largely by the realization that, citizens must achieve higher levels of education in order for nations to remain competitive, education reform has become a top priority for both developed and developing countries. And almost all governments are pursuing an aggressive education reform agenda.

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The Hands That Feed Us : Struggles of Women Agricultural Workers Rights in Pakistan

Agriculture sector is the backbone of Pakistan’s economy as it contributes around 22 percent in the GDP of the country per annum. The whole sector remained under federal control for policy and structural reforms until 2010,whereas provinces were responsible for implementation and delivery. After the 18th constitutional amendment in 2010, the sector devolved to the provinces for better policy reforms and management; however, food security matters are still under the control of the federation. More than 70 per cent of the rural labour class is associated with the agriculture sector, whereas around 90 percent of them are women agricultural labourers. Neither federal nor provincial governments have ever tried to protect the rights of agricultural labourers, particularly women agricultural workers. Majority of our political leaders and parliamentarians are feudal and landlords, therefore labour laws and other social protection policies were never applied to agricultural workers at large.

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Civil Society Perspective July, 2022 on Official VNR 2022 vis-a-vis SDGs 4 & 5

Background of Pakistan on SDGs: Pakistan is the first country that adopted SDGs as national development agenda in February 2016. Pakistan has formed specialized SDGs units at the Federal, provincial, and special areas to accelerate the progress on SDGs. The government of Pakistan have presented the first VNR in July 2019. The VNR was prepared by Planning Commission of Pakistan in collaboration with aligned ministries. Later, the government again decided to go for the second VNR in 2021, however the decision was taken back afterwards. Now, in 2022 the GoP had again decided to present the second VNR to present during UNHLPF 2022. As usual, the Planning Commission of Pakistan (PCP) has been assigned this task to lead the VNR process and prepare report. PCP also shared the process to conduct VNR of SDGs with concerned stakeholders including CSOs. Three ministries including Ministry of Planning, Development & Special Initiatives, Ministry of Human Rights and Ministry of Climate Change have been given lead to engage with concerned stakeholders. The government decided to consider all SDGs for VNR whereas the UNHLPF has prioritized SDG 4, 5, 14, 15 and 17 for reporting in 2022.Though the report was not disclosed to any stakeholder before it got presented on 15th of July, 2022 at UNHLPF. In order to ensure CSOs perspective and feedback on priority goals particularly SDGs 4 & 5, AwazCDS-Pakistan engaged with education champions/ECN member organizations and other civil society of the country to prepare an analysis of Government reporting and CSOs perspective on that. It also helped in preparing an inclusive statement on behalf of CSOs, and education champions/ECN at HLPF 2022.

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Understanding the Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) in Pakistan

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a global human rights issue and central to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 31 & 52. It is mostly considered as a peripheral issue of the broader gender based violence (GBV) discourse and hence not comprehensively examined. Women are no-doubt the primary victims of the IPV, however no or least attention has been paid towards examining its impact on both men and women from human rights perspective. The multi-dimensional and intricate nature of the issue, coupled with lack of cross-sectional and rights-based analysis of actors and factors associated with the issue makes it extremely challenging for the development practitioners to understand its prevalence and take appropriate evidence-based programming actions to reduce its impacts on the marital and family relationships.

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Evaluation Report-Ujala

Awaz Foundation Pakistan: Centre for Development Services-National Secretariat of Ujala Network initiated a process of doing an evaluation of Ujala Network through an online monkey survey to understand the strengths and weaknesses of Network. Ujala Network was established in late 2016 and it is serving communities and vulnerable segments of society through different awareness raising, lobbying and advocacy activities at various level. Network has supported the cause for the weakest segments of society who face harassment, abuse, child and forced marriages, domestic violence, stigma & discrimination, difficulties in accessing health services regarding reproductive health etc. at community as well as policy advocacy fronts.

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