1. Profile of Implementing Organization (not more than 300 words)

Bakhtawar Women Development Organization is a non-for profit and non-governmental organization formed in 2003. BWDO is a part of WHDT (Web for Human Development Thatta) and working with other four local women organizations of Thatta for last five years; these organizations are 1) Sasui Women Development Organization, 2) Mehran Women Development Organization, 3) Women Awareness and Development Association (WADA), 4) Sindhu Women Welfare Organization

BWDO has a base of 148 volunteers and members in Thatta and has executed projects in Thatta with the support of national and international organizations. Staff and members of BWDO has got trainings on Resource Mobilization, Organizational Development, Community Management, Environmental Health and Project Proposal Writing from Aga Khan Planning and Building Service, Pakistan under a UNDP/GEF sponsored project on ?Conserving Energy and Promoting Environmental Sustainability? whereas other participating organizations have also got trainings on Development Planning and Management; a graduating course of SPO for local organizations.

At present BWDO is executing a project on Micro Credit for females in Mirpur Sakro Taluka with the support of Takhleeque Foundation in 5 villages of Mirpur Sakro Taluka. Executive Committee of the organization takes all the decision of the organization. BWDO has rich experience to generate quality financial and programmatic reports for different donor on their formats. Organization has sufficient experience to undertake this project.

Since its inception organization has arranged 9 medical camps with the support of SPO and AKPBS, organized health and hygiene education sessions in 9 villages for the general improvement in the practices of hygiene in the rural areas.


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. Food, income generation, medicines and building materials are drawn from the environment.

District Thatta, once the capital of Sindh, is a coastal district of Sindh, which 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.

Different baselines and surveys conducted by various organizations and BWDO indicate that 90% population of the district use wood for cooking and heating purposes. Almost in 100% households kitchens are operated by females as male remain outside the house for their economic activity. Operating kitchen is the predominant activity of the females in rural areas of Thatta, which is creating gender imbalance in the household routine businesses.

Proposed project will contribute to the UNDP/GEF thematic areas of Energy Conservation and Efficiency in the area besides its impact on biodiversity conservation and promotion, poverty reduction and gender mainstreaming. Project activities will also contribute to the GEF small-grants programme principal objectives of a) 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, d) promotion of conservation of and sustainable use of natural resources e) conservation of biodiversity f) climate change efforts.

GEF Small Grants funds will be utilized properly for the implementation of project activities. Funds would be auditable and can be checked at any time by the supporting agency and AKPBS. BWDO would maintain all the necessary accounting and financial statements and will share with UNDP/GEF secretariat accordingly. Map of the District Thatta is given as Annex 1

3. Context/Baseline (not more than 300 words)

Thatta is hazard-prone district of Sindh province lying between coastal stretches of Arabian sea, District Badin and provincial capital Karachi. It is the major part of lower Sindh and Indus delta. The District is economically very rich and resourceful but unfortunately due to several factors, including recurring natural disasters it is counted as one of the poorest districts of province.

The district comprising on 17,355 square kilometer has a population of 1,113,190 by 1998. Average annual growth rate of population was 1.03. District Thatta is predominantly rural with 89% of population living in rural areas. The economically active population for both sexes was 25.07 percent at the district level. 17.82 percent of labour force is unemployed in the district. Proportion of unemployed persons is higher in rural (17.95 %) then in urban areas (16.73 %). Women are less economically active (7.37 %) in the district. Normally houses are made of thatched 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. 90% use wood as fuel wood for cooking and heating purposes and almost in 100% households kitchens are operated by females as male remain outside the house for their economic activity. Operating kitchen is the predominant activity of the females in rural areas of Thatta, which is creating gender imbalance in the household routine businesses. Whereas in rural areas of the district females are responsible for mud plaster to clean smoky walls of the kitchen resulting from indoor cooking smoke.

The proposed project with the support of UNDP/GEF SGP and AKPBS, P will embark on strategic initiative in the district for mainstreaming gender through replication of BACIP energy efficient products which have direct impact on the health of women and women empowerment in decision making process of the household. And will work to develop capacities of women organizations in Thatta at the local level for the mass replication of the energy efficient products and approaches.



4. Project Objective and Proposed Activity (not more than 600 words)

The broad objective of the proposed activity/project is to mainstream gender through capacity building of five local women organizations of the district followed by replication of well known energy efficient technologies of UNDP/GEF and AKPBS in the area. Following are the stipulated objectives project would satisfy during its period;

Objectives and proposed activities

Objective 1: Capacity Development of five local women development organizations of Thatta for energy conservation in the district by 2007

Activity:
o Organizing trainings on Resource Mobilization, Interpersonal communication skills, project proposal writing and effective reporting skills for five selected WOs of Thatta
o Organizing Sensitization events in Thatta for gender mainstreaming like organizing Women Day, Volunteers Day and Environment Day in Thatta
o Organizing two exposure visits
o Training of 25 female entrepreneurs on manufacturing of products
o

Objective 2: Demonstrating BACIP Housing Improvement Products in 25 villages of Thatta District

Activity:
o Selection of villages
o Baseline Data collection in the targeted villages
o Sensitization meetings with the communities in 25 villages
o Formation of 25 Women Organizations in Thatta in the targeted villages
o Installation of approximately 1,000 demo units of energy efficient products like energy efficient stoves, Muhafiz, Fanoos etc in 25 villages
o Installation/construction of 10 BACIP Compost Latrines
o Organizing health and hygiene education workshops for the females in 25 villages

Other Cross Cutting activities

In addition to the specific activities to meet stipulated objectives, following are the cross cutting activities to strengthen project outcomes;

o Formation of project coordination committee
o Sensitization sessions organizing with girls in the schools to aware them on the indoor air pollution, health and hygiene and energy efficiency. These session would generate demand for products in area as well
o Initiating tree plantation campaign in project villages as 1,500 tree saplings planted and sustained by 5 networking organizations
o Generating IEC Material like training manual on Health and Hygiene, project brochure and product brochures
o Coordination meeting with other NGOs working in the area
o Reporting, monitoring and evaluation

5. Project Strategy (not more than 600 words)

Trickle down approach will be adopted to share the resources and activities of project among five partner organizations, wherein focus of the project will be capacity development of women organizations in Thatta to effectively address energy conservation and gender mainstreaming issues in Thatta. At the initial stage soon after approval of the proposed project a Project Coordination Committee will be formed comprising of members from the project partners for progress sharing, planning, conflict resolution, reporting and supervision of the project activities. Project coordination Committee will be responsible to meet every month at the project office to review progress and make planning of the next month and discuss lessons learnt and challenges. Project will appoint staff through advertisements in local newspapers and a selection committee will be formed to appoint experienced staff, whereas 90% staff would be female members. Village selection criteria will be developed and 25 villages of Thatta will be selected for the direct implementation of project activities, five villages to each partner organization will be assigned for direct implementation. A project office will be established at Thatta City from where project staff will execute project activities. Villages with minimum 50 households using fuel wood for cooking and heating purposes and active participation of community will be sought to select the villages and social mobilization process will be initiated in the villages to form Female Community Organizations with more than 60% involvement of females in selected 25 villages.

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.

BWDO will chiefly be responsible for developing coordination with the partners through project coordination committee, whereas Aga Khan Planning and Building Service, Pakistan will be the technical partner of the project responsible for training of staff, entrepreneurs, monitoring and evaluation of the project. An external evaluator will be hired with the consent of UNDP/GEF, AKPBS and coordination committee for the final evaluation of the project. Findings of the evaluation will be shared with the national and international organizations, UNDP/GEF and AKPBS in project closing ceremony.

5.1 Coordination with NGOs/LGIs/Media

A project coordination committee will be share progress and problems with AKPBS and would share progress with other UNDP/GEF partner organizations in Thatta and Badin District.

5.2 Role of Recipient Organization:

Bakhtawar Women Development Organization (BWDO) 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 project, it will provide onsite technical facilitation to the project staff, imparting trainings to project staff and female artisans, monitoring and mid term evaluation of the project:

BWDO will sign detailed agreement with UNDP after approval of project, whereas all the partner organizations will be responsible to participate in trainings, workshops, maintain records of the project, direct implementation in the villages

5.4 Sustainability of the project

The project will transfer the skills and knowledge to the local indigenous WOs to sustain project activities and approaches in their after its end. Further female community organizations and run and maintain project interventions in future 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 Thatta and Badin
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 knowledge and skills of local indigenous local women organization in project management and resource mobilization
· increased role of women in family dynamics
· rural women are participating in development initiatives

o Economic and Financial impacts: saving in household?s expenditure spent on fuel wood purchasing and cutting

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 district level. Experiences will 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.