Attachments
Overview
The beginning of 2023 was characterized by continued focus and attention on the devastating floods of 2022 which affected over one-third of the country, alongside the expansion of the nationwide stunting prevention programme – the Benazir Nashonuma Programme (BNP). While areas in Sindh province were still experiencing emergency conditions, other parts of Pakistan were beginning the long process of recovering. Amid political and economic challenges, a financial crisis loomed as flood waters retreated, leading to a rise in unemployment and persistent inflation. While the economic situation stabilized towards the end of the year, prices remained high, resulting in further reductions of purchasing power. Concurrently, the Government, international financial institutions, and the international community continued efforts towards defining and executing the country's development agenda. This coincided with the expansion of the Benazir Nashonuma Programme (BNP) in 158 of 171 districts nationwide in 2023.
The political situation in neighbouring Afghanistan remained relatively stable and the movement of humanitarian assistance through Pakistan continued. The Government’s decision to repatriate all undocumented foreigners towards the end of the year resulted in the movement of hundreds of thousands of Afghans across the border and triggered localized insecurity and border challenges, particularly for WFP's supply chain support to Afghanistan.
WFP continued to play a major role in the humanitarian response to the 2022 floods, reaching nearly 1.7 million people with humanitarian assistance in 2023, and over 4 million people throughout the floods. WFP also implemented a complementary programme to identify and treat increasing numbers of malnourished young children and pregnant and breastfeeding women (PBW) in the districts most affected by the floods. Under the flood response, WFP also provided critical logistics support services to the Government, other United Nations agencies, and WFP Afghanistan, which resulted in the inclusion of an additional outcome in the country's strategic plan for logistics support service provision.
To meet the changing needs of the communities affected by the floods, which was compounded by the economic crisis, WFP successfully transitioned from emergency relief food to early recovery cash assistance in many of the affected areas, which injected much-needed currency into the communities to meet their ever-evolving needs. Over 1.8 million people benefited from community asset creation and livelihood support to build their resilience to future shocks.
Overall, WFP exceeded the planned number of people reached with in-kind food and cash assistance. This was predominantly due to the devaluation of the rupee, enabling WFP to stretch its resources, thereby reaching more people. Despite reaching more unique beneficiaries, WFP fell short of its targets in food and cash distributions as the programme transitioned from food to cash distributions earlier than planned. Meanwhile, not all the targeted beneficiaries received the complete (eight) rounds of cash assistance, as was planned for under the flood response plan.
Another major achievement was the expansion of the Benazir Nashonuma Programme (BNP), where WFP rehabilitated or constructed nearly 250 additional facilitation centres, creating a presence in over 500 locations across the country. With this expansion, the number of PBW and children 6-23 months enrolled in the programme reached 1.3 million by the end of 2023. This expansion was done in parallel to the flood response, thus, WFP exceeded the planned number of beneficiaries by more than triple, also due to continued funding from the Government of Pakistan.
With the focus on other outcomes, WFP was only able to focus in earnest on its development portfolio towards the end of the year in the areas of food systems strengthening and school-based programmes. Throughout the year, WFP implemented several initiatives in emergency preparedness and disaster risk reduction under activity 1 while forging a relationship with the National Disaster Management Authority and focusing on capacity strengthening and initial work on anticipatory action. As Pakistan continues to be regularly affected by natural hazards, WFP placed sustained focus on supporting the Government in preparedness and early warning.
Country capacity strengthening was embedded in all activities implemented during the year. Some achievements of note were in Activity 1 where the focus is on building national capacity around emergency preparedness and disaster risk reduction. For Activity 3, WFP worked side-by-side with the Government to implement the BNP, and also supported United Nations coherence and coordination on nutrition by leading the SUN UN Network and co-convening, the SUN Business Network and providing financial and technical support to strengthen the National Fortification Alliance (NFA) based at the Ministry of National Health Services Regulation and Coordination and Provincial Fortification Alliances (PFA) in Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Eight staff members were deployed to technically support the capacity development of Government staff on fortification initiatives. In Sindh, WFP also implemented a project aimed at strengthening the capacity of the Government's health infrastructure.
The Government of Pakistan was WFP's main partner, both at national and provincial levels, for strategic, technical, and financial engagement, especially when supporting national development priorities. Key government partners include the Benazir Income Support Programme, the national Ministry of Economic Affairs and Development, the Provincial Planning and Development Departments, the National Disaster Management Authority, and the Provincial Disaster Management Authorities along with the provincial Health and Food Departments.
WFP also partnered with 21 non-governmental organisations, mainly on flood response, asset creation and livelihoods support and the BNP. Other United Nations partnerships included UNICEF, FAO, WHO, UNFPA at national and provincial levels and with IFAD in Balochistan province.
Lastly, WFP has made some progress towards supporting the Government’s priorities under SDG 2, especially under SDG 2.1 on access to food, through the flood response and early recovery, and in SDG 2.2 on ending all forms of malnutrition, through the scaled-up treatment programmes in flood affected areas, the huge scale-up of the BNP operations for stunting prevention and through working with local wheat millers (chakkis) in supporting them on fortification. Gender equality was integrated into nearly all activities and despite the daunting challenges around gender in Pakistan, progress was made by targeting women for nearly all activities, registering them as main beneficiaries and encouraging their participation in village-level committees.