Experts gather to contribute towards sustainable flood resilient strategies

Community Resilience Activity North (CRAN), dedicated to fostering community resilience, spearheaded a comprehensive two-day workshop focused on flood recovery strategies for Sindh and Baluchistan. The event aimed to generate innovative ideas and proposals to collaborate with the governments of Sindh and Baluchistan in their efforts to address the aftermath of floods. The workshop brought together key stakeholders, experts, and community leaders. The workshop was attended by the representatives of USAID, International Organization for Migration (IOM), Community Resilience Activity North (CRA-N), Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMA), district administration, directorate of climate change. Sindh, Baluchistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The initiative underscores CRA-N’s commitment to facilitating collaboration between communities and government bodies. By providing a platform for dialogue and idea exchange, CRA-N seeks to contribute to the development of sustainable and resilient strategies that can withstand the challenges posed by natural disasters. The workshop addressed various facets of flood recovery, including infrastructure rebuilding, community empowerment, and the integration of technological solutions. Participants explored opportunities for leveraging resources, both human and technological, to enhance the overall resilience of the affected regions. Speakers focused on the need of the hour to increase cooperation between CRA-North, Government Entities and other stakeholders to speed up the process of flood relief in the most affected regions and make communities more resilient and prone to future disaster events. This was followed by an icebreaking and objective setting session by the organizers. Later, Jannat Durrani, Deputy Chief of Party Community Resilience Activity North (CRA-N) shed light on the background and main idea of the workshop and how it would help gain more effective results and outcomes of the flood relief interventions carried out by CRA-North and its partners. Next, Kashif Karim Democracy, Rights and Governance Specialist USAID Pakistan briefed the participants about the USAID and CRA-North Resilience Journey based on resilience interventions, especially related to the communities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan, carried throughout the years. Following this session, a detailed briefing was given by Ali Jamali, Deputy Director PDMA Planning and Coordination Baluchistan, on the CRA-N Flood Strategy for the affected regions. CRA-N has a comprehensive plan for making local communities more resilient to flood and other natural disasters as well as to mitigate effects of any future natural disasters. Subsequently, a team building activity was carried out with the title of ‘Blue-Sky Thinking – Envisioning Possibilities’ to jump start the brainstorming process of the participants in order to come up with creative solutions and ideas for flood relief and resilience. This was followed by Reflections and Overnight Assignment for the participants and with this activity the day one of the workshop came to a close. The second day of the workshop began with an Energizer and Reflections session. This was briefly followed by a briefing by Ghazanfar Ali, ADC Khairpur administration Sindh on the topic of ‘Setting Parameters- SINDH Strategy for Flood Response – GoS’. Afterwards a group work session was conducted to promote team building skills which was later followed by a ‘Presenting, Evaluating & Detailing’ session. Later on the day, a ‘Commitment Sharing’ session was carried out in which the participants pledged to work diligently for the implementation of the workshop goals and objectives. Ibrar Wazir, ADC Swat administration KP. He shed light on the importance of the efforts carried out by CRA-N, Government Institutions and allied partners related to the flood relief and resilience activities throughout the most affected regions of Pakistan and especially in the Swat region. The two day workshop came to an end with the project ideas from Sindh, Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa teams for the the flood recovery initiative in Sindh and Baluchistan. With the support of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan Provincial Disaster Management (PDMA) Units and District Disaster Management Units (DDMU’s; representation from the Swat, Dadu, Jacobabad, Kairpur and Quetta District Administrations and USAID partners; CRA-N will further organize two Quarterly Community Resilience ‘Flood Recovery’ Strategy Workshops’ which are scheduled between October 2023 – June 2024.