City officials, community members support participatory consultations in Abbottabad
July 2019
Municipal officials and community members in Abbottabad, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan have expressed their appreciation for the inclusive and participatory planning process implemented by the Urban Climate Change Resilience Trust Fund (UCCRTF), Oxfam Pakistan, and Omar Ashgar Khan Foundation (OAKF) through the Building Resilience at Community Level (BRUC) project.
The Municipal Mayor, Provincial Governor, and the Secretary of the Pakistan Youth Development Council were among several stakeholders to give video testimonials highlighting the importance of community consultations and engagement in a process of co-creating resilient and sustainable communities.
In this participatory planning process, women, youth, the elderly farmers, and other vulnerable stakeholders were given a forum to voice their ideas and opinions, as well as to listen to one another and be heard by municipal leaders and personnel. Different sectors engaged in the BRUC project were able to identify and examine the resilience issues faced by the community, hearing directly from the community’s experiences and points of view.
In the video, the Tehsil Nazim (Municipal Mayor) of Abbottabad Ishaq
Zakaria shared his gratitude for ADB and Oxfam Pakistan for the opportunity of working together on the project. He added that Abbottabad faces several serious challenges such as poor sanitation and solid waste management, natural disasters, traffic congestion, and inadequate water supply systems. Through the project, community consultations and workshops were organized to help identify solutions and resolve the problems.
District Nazim (District Governor) Sardar Shabir Ahmed was also grateful to the project partners for uplift the community and addressing the social issues faced by Abbottabad. The governor learned a lot from the workshops and pledged to fully cooperate, support, and attend all activities of the project.
AUTHOR
Marino Deocariza
An urban climate change resilience specialist, Joy manages the Urban Climate Change Resilience Trust Fund (UCCRTF) portfolio in Indonesia and the Philippines.
Ayesha Abbasi, representing women and youth of the Pakistan Youth Development Organization, recommended that Abbottabad should have more participatory events and workshops. She said: “What I liked most about this workshop was that the problems faced by ordinary citizens were raised... In [the] open discussion, affected people can share their thoughts and point of view. These workshops are necessary, and a lot of the problems which we thought were only faced by us, we now realize are faced by others. In raising our voices together, small problems were raised and larger problems have all been noted.”
The BRUC project is funded by the UCCRTF under the Urban Financing Partnership Facility administered by ABD. The project aims to support poor urban communities, especially vulnerable groups. Through an inclusive resilience planning process, the project hopes to enhance communities’ well-being, especially in times of disasters and climate change shocks and stresses. The project covers nine cities in four countries: Patuakhali and Faridpur in Bangladesh; Yangon in Myanmar; Sialkot and Abbottabad in Pakistan; and Malay (Aklan), La Trinidad (Benguet), Del Carmen (Surigao del Norte), and Janiuay (Iloilo) in the Philippines.