On 31 December 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) office in China received a report of 29 pneumonia cases of unknown etiology in Wuhan city in Hubei province, central China. The virus was quickly identified as a novel beta-coronavirus and the genetic sequence was shared on 12 January 2020. The infection is now officially termed COVID-19 and the virus SARS-CoV-2. Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by a newly discovered coronavirus. Most people infected with the COVID-19 virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment.  Older people, pregnant women, people living with disabilities and those with underlying medical problems like cardiovascular disease, diabetes, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are more likely to develop serious illness. According to Centre for Disease control and prevention “Symptoms such as Fever, Cough, and Shortness of breath may appear 2-14 days after exposure (based on the incubation period of MERS-CoV viruses).

In the meanwhile, World Health Organization (WHO) urged all countries to prepare for the potential arrival of COVID-19 by readying emergency response systems; increasing capacity to detect and care for patients; ensuring hospitals have the space, supplies and necessary personnel; and developing life-saving medical interventions. WHO had declared Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) a Pandemic on March 11, 2020. Furthermore, the Government of Pakistan had declared a National Health Emergency of Public Concern in regard to the same on 13^th of March 2020.

Click here to View & Download

View & Download

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.

Click here to View & Download

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 15^th 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.

Click here to View & Download

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.

Click here to View & Download