RECORDER REPORT

FAISALABAD: The World Bank is considering to provide financial assistance to “The Indus Ecoregion Community Livelihood Project (IECLP), which is aimed to improve the livelihoods of the local communities by (i) linking farmers to markets and strengthening value chains (ii) Facilitating rural non-farm income; and (iii) Reducing risk, vulnerability, and gender inequality.

Support through this project will, therefore, focus on enhancing rural livelihoods and community-based programmes, involving: building institutions for the poor, especially for women, youth and minorities so that they can better articulate their demands; facilitating achievement of economies of scale; improving access to public and private services; and making rural producers more attractive to private enterprises.

According to a project report, the Indus Ecoregion Community Livelihood Project (IECLP) is being developed by WWF-Pakistan to improve the livelihoods of local communities through improved natural resource management.

The project will focus on four priority sites of the Indus Ecoregion, where WWF-Pakistan is already present and has an understanding of the local communities’ needs and socio-economic potential. The project will cover an area of 2,168km with at least 187 villages, in the Sindh province of Pakistan. The priority areas are:

(i) Keenjhar Lake in Thatta District;

(ii) Chotiari Reservoir in Sanghar District;

(iii) Nara Canal and surrounding communities in Khairpur District; and

(iv) Manchar Lake and surrounding communities in Jamshoro District

According to project details, IECLP has been divided into three main components: Component-I is related to improvement in fishing practices and establishment of fisher groups, and is inclusive of advocacy for better management practices through fisher sustainability schools (FSS), establishment of four fisher groups, establishment of chilling units, ice boxes and packaging units; Component-II is related to promotion of alternative livelihood for women and youth and includes organisation of targeted communities and establishment of community based livelihood activities, provision of assets and capacity building. Component-II also encompasses monitoring and evaluation and knowledge dissemination. The project has been categorized as Category B since most proposed interventions are soft in nature, include capacity building and community organisation and do not include any physical activity. The project will however provide some basic assets like stoves, chillers, indigo seeds and processing units, and packaging units spread over the project area. The activities are not expected to have any physical footprint and any adverse environmental or social impacts.

It has been revealed that most of these potential impacts are localized in nature with low severity.

Furthermore, with the help of appropriate mitigation and control measures, most of these potential impacts will either be avoided altogether, or their likelihood of occurrence and severity will be further reduced, thus making these schemes environmentally responsible and socially acceptable.