Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Southern Area Development Project

Under the Project Title: ‘Southern Area Development Project’, the KPK Government aimed to bring peace and tolerance through livelihood enhancement and poverty alleviation in three of the most vulnerable districts of KPK, i.e. D I Khan, Lakki Marwat and Tank. Mera Maan’s task was to undertake a livelihood assessment in 25 Union Councils (approximately 140 villages) and evolve a livelihood framework with specific interventions in all districts and a livelihood implementation plan for the next two years. An inbuilt feature included a presentation of the proposed framework to senior most stakeholders at Government and World Bank levels. This training was designed and conducted for the Southern Area Development Project (SADP) of GoKP. This assignment focused on identifying the capacity gaps, and designing a tailormade module, for 32 social mobilizers of this $20 million project, funded by the World Bank, The designed training was highly experiential, with the following objectives:

• Why social mobilization is critical for effective community-driven development (CDD).
• How the various components of the program lead to sustainable livelihood development.
• How personal and professional competencies can directly impact program results.

The following activities were conducted by the Mera Maan team:

Competency-based need assessment for senior management, social mobilizers and support staff. The capacity needs assessment was used to design three different modules. The training was highly experiential and participatory, and covered concepts on leadership, teamwork, poverty alleviation frameworks, employment and self-employment, creative documentation and reporting, using research tools and techniques to assess and analyze over 400 villages, to eventually benefit 6000 poor, vulnerable and IDPs. The end result was the development of a livelihood framework and strategy for the project, and the building of capacities over 7 months to improve implementation.