Download List of NGOs:

1st Phase NGOs - (PDF)   2nd Phase NGOs - (PDF)  

Download Implementation Plan:

Implementation Plan (1st Year) - (PDF)   Implementation Plan (2nd Year) - (PDF)  

Download Presentations:

The Project - (PowerPoint)   School Program - (PowerPoint)

Pakistan Safe Drinking Water and Hygiene Promotion Project U.S. Agency for International Development

Background
Abt Associates' International Economic Growth Division was awarded a $17.9 million, three-year task order by USAID under the Environmental Health Indefinite Quantity Contract. The objective of this Task Order is to increase the effectiveness and sustainability of Pakistan's Clean Drinking Water Programs. In particular, Abt Associates is responsible for supporting the Government of Pakistan's efforts to install over 6,000 water treatment facilities throughout the country in the next two years.
Abt Associates provides technical assistance in hygiene and sanitation promotion and community mobilization along with extensive capacity building in order to complement the GOP's substantial investments in hardware for safe drinking water. The overarching goal is to improve the health and well-being of millions of Pakistani citizens.

Basic Facts
According to the World Health Organization and UNICEF, about 4 billion cases of diarrhea are reported each year resulting in about 1.8 million deaths, or roughly 5,000 deaths per day. This figure represents 17% of all deaths of children under the age of five, making diarrhea the second biggest killer of children. Unsafe drinking water is shown to lead to poverty. The combination of unsafe water consumption and poor hygiene practices causes hardship due to resultant high costing treatments for water borne illnesses, decreased working days, and also contribute to lowering of educational achievement due to reduced school attendance by children.

Pakistan has no formal water treatment in rural and peri-urban areas, and water contamination is a major problem. Poor hygiene practices such as lack of hand washing are common. In addition, generally speaking, there is lack of awareness about what "clean" water means. We have found that most people believe that if the water is clear, and does not smell, is good for drinking. This could present a barrier for the acceptance of household water treatment methods or community water filtration plants.

Scope

The project will involve activities in 40 selected districts/agencies/Frontier Regions of four Provinces of Pakistan, including earthquake-affected areas of NWFP, FATA and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJ&K), with a total population of over 31 million.

Project Objective and Components

The strategic objective of the project is to improve health for vulnerable populations and increased use of proven interventions to prevent water-borne infectious diseases. The project components include: i) strengthen local capacity to manage and operate water treatment plans in a sustainable manner, ii) develop, implement and evaluate behavior change communications activities to improve safe water management, hand washing behaviors and sanitation practices in households, iii) provide technical review on water testing methods and household water treatment technologies.

Project Description

The Project will help in providing technical assistance in hygiene and sanitation promotion and community mobilization along with extensive capacity building in order to complement Pakistan's substantial investments in hardware for safe drinking water. The project is being implemented in a collaborative and supportive strategy with the Ministry of Industries, Production & Special Initiatives Clean Drinking Water Projects and the Ministry of Environment.

The project provides training, and education on hygiene and sanitation practices, operation and maintenance of treatment facilities, water quality testing and also addresses water source protection to prevent contamination of water. The project aims to demonstrate how social mobilization may lead to sustainability and better management of filtration plants by the communities.

The project will also provide support to Governmental agencies and NGO's and communities through capacity-building and training in operations and management of water treatment units, hygiene and sanitation promotion, community mobilization, planning, cost recovery, and water resources management to ensure that investments in hardware and promotional activities will be sustainable in the long-term.

Conceptual Approach

The project has three main elements: Access to Hardware, Hygiene Promotion and Enabling Environment. Access to Hardware, which includes availability of water supply systems, improved sanitation facilities,and household technologies and materials, including soap for hand washing, water containers, and household treatment methods. Hygiene promotion includes hygiene behavior change communication, and community and social mobilization activities among others, and Enabling Environment, where capacity building is important for local government institutions, community organizations so they are able to operate and maintain water infrastructure in a sustainable manner and forming partnerships as necessary.

One of the major challenges we face is the long-term sustainability of the 6,000 filtration plants to be installed by the government. Part of this is due to the lack of capacity and poor financial conditions of local governments. Local capacity building and community ownership are key elements to overcome this challenge and are considered in our strategy. In addition, lack of awareness about water quality and its linkages to health represent an important barrier. We have to overcome the general perception is that if the water is clear and does not smell is good to drink. Our behavior change strategy is addressing this issue.

Affordability of household technologies and water quality testing methods constitutes another important challenge. For household technologies, external funds are needed coming from the private and commercial sectors or by the homeowners themselves. Finally, there is a need to develop cheap water quality testing technologies. Today, scientists and researchers from the United States and Europe are joining forces to develop a water quality test for microbial contamination under $1.

Hygiene Improvement Framework

Project Staffing

The Pakistan Safe Drinking Water and Hygiene Promotion Projectis located in Islamabad Pakistan. All project filed staff is from Pakistan except the Chief of Party. There are four project component directors, an F&A official, and support staff. The project involves four subcontractors: the Academy for Educational Development (AED), The QED Group, LLC, MWH, and the Institute for Sustainable Communities (ISC). AED provides technical leadership on Hygiene Promotion, the QED Group is responsible for monitoring and evaluation activities, MWH provides technical expertise on water treatment technologies, and ISC provide support in community mobilization activities.