The proposed project will focus primarily on public representatives at the federal level, especially involving the standing committees of National Assembly and Senate on environment as well as other members with interest in environmental issues. Therefore, most of the activities under the project will be implemented in Islamabad, where the target participants spend significant amount of their time. On the basis of problems confronted and gaps identified GEF partners, the project would aim to educate public representatives, build their capacities and facilitate them to take initiatives whereby laws and public policies on environment and relevant implementation mechanisms could be strengthened. As explained above, such linkages are very weak at the moment and public representatives need to be effectively engaged so as to achieve the optimal impact of the very valuable work already undertaken by CSOs, especially GEF partners, over the last decade.

The problem was first identified in the course of CRCP engagement with parliamentarians and political parties on multiple issues including environment during 2002. Several parliamentarians requested CRCP to provide them briefings and technical support, as they were not aware of the work undertaken by various environmental NGOs and how best it could be used by them to inform and optimize governmental laws and policies. The problem was also identified and highlighted during the ?National Conference with Parliamentarians and Political Parties on Environment?, which was jointly organized by CRCP, IUCN and GEF in November 2003. Several parliamentarians suggested that CRCP should help them in improving their capacities on environmental issues, especially on how they could work for improved policies and laws. On the other hand, GEF partners complained in several meetings that public representatives were not supportive of their initiatives and their successful models were not being replicated and scaled up by the government agencies. They also frequently pointed to problems, inadequacies and limitations in various public policies and laws, which needed to be rectified in order for them to work more efficiently to achieve their project objectives. However, the scope of their projects, as well as the fact that their initiatives were based on certain geographical locales, did not allow them to work for the improvement of policy environment by working with public representatives and responsible agencies at the federal and provincial levels.