Project Details.

The Farmers Development Organization (FDO) implemented the Building Disaster Resilience in Pakistan (BDRP) program, completing three phases across eight Union Councils in District Muzaffargarh, Southern Punjab. In 2021, the focus was on sustaining interventions by strengthening social structures, enhancing leadership skills, improving humanitarian response understanding, and fostering local ownership. This phase is executed with technical and financial support from Welthungerhilfe (WHH). 

The project's goal is to increase resilience among poor populations, especially women, against natural disasters by sustaining Community-Based Disaster Risk Management (CBDRM) strategies from previous phases. It aimed to solidify social structure collaborations with government departments, ensuring the continuation of development initiatives in line with National and Provincial Disaster Management System (N/PDMS) commitments. 

The project also sought to maintain livelihood strategies and bolster local authority support for effective disaster response and service delivery. Expected outputs include: Establishing effective disaster risk management structures within target communities. Preparing households to manage climate-related natural disasters and adopt risk reduction measures. Introducing sustainable livelihoods and environmental management practices to build resilience. The assignment's deliverables encompass conducting a needs assessment with executive bodies of social structures, identifying strengths and weaknesses in institutional capacity, designing and delivering a one-day capacity development session, and reviewing registration files with district government departments to prepare an action plan. 

The methodology for assessing the institutional capacity of social structures and developing administrative and financial manuals involved two main parts:

Part I: Institutional Capacity Assessment Assessment Tool Development: Created a comprehensive questionnaire for evaluating social structures' (UCDMCs/UCRFs) capacities, finalized with FDO's feedback. 

Meetings and Data Collection: Conducted individual meetings with executive members to discuss the questionnaire and gather detailed information. 

Key Domains Assessed: 

• Governance: Vision, mission, legal status, leadership. 

• Administration: Organizational structure, policies, filing systems. 

• Human Resources: Staffing, job descriptions, personnel policies. 

• Financial Management: Policies, internal controls, documentation, planning. 

• Organizational Management: Planning, resource mobilization, communication. 

• Program Management: Community involvement, project implementation, M&E. 

• Needs Identification: Prioritized capacity strengthening needs based on assessment results, leading to the development of a capacity development plan and training contents. 

• Training Contents: Included governance, administrative and financial systems, procurement processes, and record maintenance. 

Part II: Administrative and Financial Manuals Development 

Manual Development: Prepared manuals based on assessment findings, covering: Organizational structure policies Administration policies Financial management procedures Asset management Procurement policies Key Findings from Institutional Capacity Assessment Social structures (UCDMCs/UCRFs) vary in formation time, coverage area, and number of executive members. All structures have office bearers, but the number of executive body members ranges from 10 to 26.