The State of Agriculture, Livelihood, Food Security, Nutrition, Water and Sanitation in Drought Affected Communities in Sindh
Executive Summary
The Sindh Drought Needs Assessment (SDNA) has been conducted to understand the drought and its impacts on various sectors including livelihood, food security, nutrition, health, water, and sanitation in Sindh. This assessment also aimed at providing recommendations for short (emergency), midterm (recovery/rehabilitation) and long term (development) strategies to foster better understanding of drought and its coping strategies, its social and economic implications, to save lives and livelihoods and to strengthen capacities of the government and communities at risk to respond to crisis with effective drought adaptation/risk mitigation measures; and set priorities for action.
Food Security Cluster-Pakistan under the leadership of FAO and WFP has conducted this assessment in coordination with UNICEF, UNOCHA, ACTED, IOM, Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA-Sindh), National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and Bureau of Statistics-Sindh.
The assessment used both quantitative and qualitative data. A household questionnaire was used to collect data from 3,565 households located in 100 union councils, 272 villages, and 33 tehsils of 9 districts of Sindh (Khairpur, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Tharparkar, Badin, Thatta, Jamshoro and Dadu). The household questionnaire was primarily designed by a multisectoral team on agriculture, food security, nutrition, migration, health and assistance and finalized in consultation and with the approval of NDMA and PDMA-Sindh. Considering the objective of the assessment, a three-stage sampling methodology was applied targeting the drought affected union councils and villages in the above mentioned districts. The impact of water-scarcity on agricultural production, livelihood, nutrition and other sectors is assessed across agro-climatic zones- West, Irrigated, East and South East. The West zone mainly comprised of district Thatta, Jamshoro and Dadu; the Irrigated zone includes districts Khairpur, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Thatta and Badin; the East zone comprised of parts of district Sanghar, Khairpur, and Tharparkar, whereas the South-East zone includes part of Umerkot and most of Tharparkar.