1. Profile of Implementing Organization
Karampur Welfare and Development Organization (KWDO) is a not for profit and non governmental organization registered under Social Welfare Act 1961 registration # SWD/hyd/90/305 working in Taluka Mirpur Sakro District Thatta for last 16 years in the areas of social mobilization, education, livestock and agriculture and poverty reduction and environmental up gradation on participatory development principles.

The executive committee headed by the President of KWDO comprises on 11 members and office bearers who execute all the decisions of the organization and look after organizational business.

KWDO has a base of 64 volunteers and members in the targeted Taluka. Currently it is operating with the support of 20 staff members with the expertise in the fields of social mobilization, training, monitoring and reporting, accounts and financial management.

KWDO has implemented different projects in Taluka Mirpur Sakro with the support of notable supporting agencies like SPO, EU, Save the Children UK, World Bank, Unicef and AKPBSP.

Organizations like Aga Khan Planning and Building Service, Pakistan, SPO, Takhleeque Foundation has played a major role in technical capacity building of the organization. KWDO has been working with AKPBS, P for last three years. It has worked with AKPBS, P in the implementation of pilot project BACIP-BEIP in 2003 and CEPES in 2006. Members of the organization have received trainings from AKPBS, P under UNDP/GEF funded CEPES project as training partner organization.

Organization has got technical and managerial trainings from Aga Khan Planning and Building Service, Pakistan (AKPBS). Core members/staff are trained to manufacture the products of BACIP and has the capacity to undertake project efficiently.

Currently KWDO is implementing a project on ?Formation and Strengthening of School Management Committees? with the support of Iqra University in 37 villages in the same area since last six months.

The major achievements of the organization are:

· Implemented project on Disaster Relief Supplies with the support of Save Children UK in 2003 in coastal areas of Thatta
· Provided water supply schemes in two villages of Mirpur Sakro Taluka with the support of World Bank in 2001
· Rehabilitation of Disaster Affectees project in coastal areas of Thatta with the support of SCF UK in 2003
· Adult Literacy centers established in 20 villages of Mirpur Sakro Taluka with the support of NCHD in 2004, wherein total 585 females were enrolled
· Established eight Non formal primary education centers in Mirpur Sakro Taluka in 2002 with the support of Literacy and Education Department Sindh Government (Continue)
· Micro credit to the farmers in 7 villages of Mirpur Sakro Taluka with the support of Al Fallah Volunteer Trust Karachi. Credit is being provided to 309 farmers of the area
· Seed bank project is being implemented in 1 village with the support of Takhleeque Foundation Karachi. Under the project quality seed is provided to 10 families
· Provided seed and fertilizer to 30 families in 11 villages with the support of EU in 2003

2. Justification for Support - Linkages with GEF Themes and Operational Programmes (not more than 300 words)

Pakistan with the population estimated at 142.5 million, is beset with an excess of natural and human induced hazards that create problems to livelihoods of the disadvantaged groups.

District Thatta, once the capital of Sindh, is highly challenged by poverty and environmental degradation. Poverty has made the people of Thatta highly dependent on its biodiversity and environment for their subsistence livelihoods. The 1.1 million people of the district are usually disadvantaged groups in terms of income, public service facilities and energy. Thatta is ranked as the second least developed districts of Sindh in terms of living environment conditions.

90% of Thatta?s population uses wood as fuel for cooking and heating purposes where an average household consumes 4 tons of wood annually. This is contributing to the rapidly depletion of forest leading to environmental issues.

Taluka Mirpur Sakro in Thatta comprises of 2,958 square km in area, with a population of about 379,852 people. There are 1,052 villages in 10 Union Councils in the Taluka, 25% people are literate and almost 80% community is involved in agriculture and livestock, which is the predominant economic activity of the area, whereas 15% community is involved in fishing business directly or indirectly. About 100% people use fuel wood for cooking and heating purposes. Only 3% of the total population is in government jobs. Map of the District Thatta and Taluka Mirpur Sakro is given as Annex 1

Following factors contribute in the deteriorating environmental conditions in the area:

a) Domestic firewood and timber consumption for heating, cooking and household construction in semi-urban and rural communities of Thatta put excessive pressures on forest and forest products; giving rise to a variety of health, economic and environment related problems.
b) Skin and water borne diseases, eye watering is common in the area, due to smoky environment inside the house that has badly affected the health of people in general and women and children in particular.
c) There is no system of the sanitation and latrines in about 80% villages of Mirpur Sakro Taluka, people use open fields as latrine, which makes surrounding environment unhealthy and creates inorganic pollutants in the air and ground water
d) People of the area lack awareness on the usage of energy efficient products and technologies

The proposed project will address most of the issues encountered in the project areas of Taluka Mirpur Sakro through a number of initiatives.

District Thatta is one of the focus districts of UNDP in Pakistan for 2015 where UNDP activities can be initiated due to its vulnerable environmental conditions. The proposed project is designed to contribute to GEF small-grants programme country specific criteria of promotion of:

a) Energy efficiency, energy conservation and adoption of technology, and
b) Promotion of conservation of and sustainable use of natural resources.

Project activities will also contribute to the GEF small-grants programme principal objectives of

a) Replicable strategies and technologies to reduce threat to global warming
b) Spread of successful community level innovations among CBOs and NGOs for scaling up of effort, and
c) Building of partnerships and network of local stakeholders and strengthening of community.

GEF Small Grants funds will be utilized for the efficient implementation of project activities. Funds would be auditable and can be checked at any time by the supporting agency. KWDO would maintain all the necessary accounting and financial statements and will share with UNDP/GEF secretariat accordingly.

3. Context/Baseline

Taluka Mirpur Sakro is one the coastal Talukas of Thatta District with approximate population of 3,79,852 living in 1,052 villages. World Bank carried out Socio-economic Study in coastal areas of Thatta and Badin in 2005, which shows that the people of coastal belt of Sindh are highly vulnerable to the social services. Almost 100% population use wood for the purpose of cooking, heating and construction purposes and on average every household in the targeted Taluka consumes 11-12 kg of wood for cooking and heating purpose daily, which is putting negative impact on biodiversity conservation, and averagely each household spends about Rs. 8,000-10,000 annually on fuel wood. Excessive usage of fuel wood on one hand puts negative impact on biodiversity of the area and on other hand endangers the health of women and children particularly and men generally due to carbon emission in the environment and in house.

Various independent field surveys and researches conducted by KWDO and other local organizations indicate that the depleting sources of biodiversity have posed threats to the local livelihoods at risk and vulnerability.

Normally houses are made of thatched material including mud and Bamboo and there is no proper ventilation system in houses and kitchen as well. Kitchen and houses remains full with smoke during cooking and heating times, which ultimately suffer the women and children as they remain more besides the stove and in smoky environment inside the house.

Fishing community of the Taluka is involved in fish catching and usually they remain on the sea for seven to ten days to catch fish on the boats. Conventional ice boxes are installed in their boats where they store fish. Ice melting period in the conventional boxes is maximum four to six days. As a result the fishing community bears massive losses and they are unable to break the vicious circle of poverty. The current project aims to address issues discussed in the above baseline scenario. List of village is given as Annex 2.

4. Project Objective and Proposed Activity

The proposed activity/project will replicate the well known energy efficient technologies of UNDP/GEF and AKPBS, Pakistan in the area. Proposed activity in collaboration with UNDP/GEF SGP and AKPBS, P would embark on a strategic initiative to develop capacities at the local level for the mass replication of the energy efficient products and approaches. Project will work in 20 selected villages of the Mirpur Sakro Taluka.

Objectives and proposed activities

Objective 1: reducing indoor air pollution and promoting health of women and children in 20 villages in and around Mirpur Sakro Taluka by 2007

Activity:
· conduct baseline survey
· selection of villages
· formation of community organizations
· installation of approximately 1,000 units of energy efficient stoves
· introduce water warming facility and
· introduce 20 Muhafiz for food preservation

Objective 2: raising community awareness for the adoption of energy efficient technologies and develop capacities of 25 entrepreneurs in and around Mirpur Sakro by 2007 for mass replication of products

Activity:
· organizing 10 school festivals
· organizing dissemination meetings and workshops with Union Council and Taluka Councils
· organizing community meetings and village level publicity workshops in 20 villages
· training of 25 entrepreneurs/local artisans in manufacturing and installation of products
· organizing trainings on Organizational Development, record keeping, training of KWDO staff in social mobilization and effective communication
· organizing Health and Hygiene workshops for females in 20 villages
· registration of community organizations as CCBs
· support CCBs in designing community projects related to energy efficiency
· facilitate liaison of CCBs with District Government to access funds for projects

Objective 3: Installation of livelihood improvement products to improve fish storages methods of coastal communities of Mirpur Sakro Taluka by 2007

Activity:
· selection of fishermen
· installation of approximately 25 demo units of energy efficient fish cold storages in 10 villages of Mirpur Sakro Taluka by 2007

5. Project Strategy

The project will adopt participatory approaches of development and will seek assistance of Aga Khan Planning and Building Service, Pakistan (AKPBS) for effective implementation of the project. In the initial stage village selection criteria will be developed and 20 villages in and around Mirpur Sakro Taluka will be selected for the implementation of project activities, a project office will be established at Mirpur Sakro from where project staff will run the project. Villages with minimum 50 households using fuel wood for cooking and heating purposes, and some of them will be fish based villages where community are involved in fishing business directly or indirectly. Social mobilization process will be started in the villages and COs (male and female) with more than 60% involvement of community members will be formed in the targeted area. Project will work in partnership with the COs. Females will particularly be involved in the activities like involvement in trainings and village level publicity workshops and participation in health and hygiene education.

Project inauguration ceremony will be organized in first month of the inception to share project objectives and processes and products at mass level and a project ending ceremony will be organized at provincial level to share the findings/lessons learnt during the implementation of project.

5.1 Coordination with NGOs/LGIs/Media

A project coordination committee will be formed involving representatives of local government, elected representatives, government officials, AKPBS, Pakistan, NGOs and media to guide the project and monitor its activities on quarterly basis.

5.2 Role of Recipient Organization:

Karampur Welfare and Development Organization (KWDO) will mainly be responsible for the overall implementation and management of the project including recruitment of the project staff, office establishment, financial management and accounting and monitoring of the project activities, and be responsible for programmatic and financial reporting to the donor.

5.3 Role of partner organizations:

Aga Khan Planning and Building Service, Pakistan will be the technical partner of KWDO, it will provide:

· On site training of staff members
· Field Monitoring
· Mid Term and Project end Evaluation
· Training of entrepreneurs/artisans

KWDO will sign terms of partnership with AKPBS, Pakistan after signing of agreement with GEF-SGP, UNDP.

5.4 Sustainability of the project

The project will transfer the skills and knowledge to local organizations and build capacities for implementing such community level projects in future. Community organizations formed in the targeted villages will be trained and mobilized on the project processes and products to continue to the interventions after completion of the project. Entrepreneurs/artisans will be trained during the project implementation on the manufacturing and installation of project products. These entrepreneurs will continue installation of the products after completion of the project on self help basis and will generate income from the installations and continue.

5.5 Relationship to other GEF funded project

Project will complement with the other projects funded by GEF in the district like ?Environmental Upgradation through Community Participation? implemented by SAFWCO in Taluka Kharochan, ?Conserving Energy and Promoting Environmental Sustainability? implemented by AKPBS in Ghorabari and Keti Bunder Taluka.


7. Anticipated Results (not more than 300 words)

Indicate impacts on participants/beneficiaries:

Along with the successful demonstration of GEF-AKPBS products in the area, project will lead to impact as follows;

7.1 Related to Humans

o Health Impact: General improvement in women, children, men and the elderly? health because of better in-house and surrounding environmental conditions causing decreased incidence of disease.

o Social Impacts: increased social cohesiveness and access of the community to adopt energy efficient products and replicate them

o Economic and Financial impacts: General increase in living standard of trained entrepreneurs by increased income in service and sales, and replication in other areas. General increase in community households? disposal income through savings on heating, cooking and health related expenses, and reduced unemployment.

7.2 Related to Environment

o Land related impacts: General increase in forest productivity through reduced use of wood and timber for energy.
o Air related impacts: General improvement in quality of air through reduction in CO, CO2 and other gaseous emissions, and more forests to act as sinks

7.3 Demonstration Value

Project design revolves around the demonstration of livelihood improvement products to conserve energy in the shape of installation of energy efficient products.

7.4 Experience value

Lessons learnt during the implementation of project will be shared in the consultative meeting and seminars at provincial and district level. Experiences will be documented as ready reference for the future interventions.

7.5 Potential risks

The targeted area is prone to sudden onset disasters such as cyclone and flood. Such mishap can create hindrances in achieving stipulated objectives and time frame.