Pakistan Humanitarian Pooled Fund (PHPF)
1st Standard Fund Allocation Strategy 19 April, 2017:
Life-Saving and Time Critical Interventions to Support the Return Process in FATA
Background:
In early 2015 the Pakistani government launched a new plan to assist the returns of displaced families to FATA. Areas cleared by the military are “de-notified”, and declared safe for returns.
From January to November 2016, the Government, with the support from humanitarian partners facilitated the return of 630,000 registered IDPs (including 145,000 women, 145,000 men; 151,000 girls and 189,000 boys), and 170,741 un-registered families. This return process requires joint efforts to ensure sustainability as the return of people to their areas of origin is required for a durable solution.
This is also underpins people’s confidence level with their government, and will enable millions of people to start regain and rebuild their livelihoods The return process that was initiated in 2015 has seen a significant number of families return to their areas of origin. However, several challenges have been faced by the returning families as the rate of returns was not in line with the rehabilitation and reconstruction of basic services by the authorities. There are ongoing initiatives in the return areas covering a range of sectors from reconstruction of roads, public buildings, markets, water supply schemes, schools and health facilities. Even though rehabilitation activities have been completed and many are ongoing, significant unmet needs and gaps persist in many of the areas of returns.
To allow for an evidence-based process and enable the clusters to develop detailed information on return trends and immediate humanitarian needs on ground, various inter‐cluster assessment missions, cluster specific assessment missions, and validation missions were conducted across FATA, between January and March 2017. These assessments were based on a sample of some of the recently de‐notified villages. In addition, the missions gathered information on the status, quality and quantity of services available in the area through meetings with the local authorities, local line departments, and the affected population. Following up on the assessment reports, OCHA facilitated two separate re-verification missions (comprised of cluster coordinators and OCHA HAOs) to North Waziristan and Orakzai agencies on 9-12 March and 14-18 March respectively. Government figures show that approximately 128,000 families had been displaced from these two agencies since 2008.
The missions assessed the humanitarian situation in 59 recently de‐notified villages of Miran Shah, Mir Ali, Ghulam Khan and Datta Khel in North Waziristan and Ghalgo, Farid Khan Garhi, Swaro kot, Kool and Daburi areas of Orakzai agency. The re-verification findings confirmed that there are unmet humanitarian needs on the ground across all sectors, however the most urgent lifesaving interventions are required in WASH, Health, Nutrition, Shelter, and Education. It was noted that the lack of education facilities has had a negative impact on girl’s education.
