Oxfam's work in Pakistan in depth

Oxfam’s focus in Pakistan is on ensuring poor women’s access to land and economic opportunity; ending violence against women; ensuring all girls have the right to a quality education; increasing resilience to disasters and climate change; and improving access to effective humanitarian assistance during emergencies.

 

More on Oxfam's Pakistan Floods response

The context

With over 180 million inhabitants, Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world (UN, 2009), and ranks 141st out of 182 countries on the United Nations Development Programme’s 2009 Human Development Index. 70% of the population lives in rural areas, 24-40% under the poverty line. Pakistan continues to struggle with high rates of unemployment, inflation and insecurity. Adding to the instability is the ongoing conflict within the country.

How is Oxfam helping?

Oxfam has been working in Pakistan since 1973. We support local partners and work with government authorities to improve the livelihoods of those living in poverty, and provide humanitarian assistance to those affected by disasters and conflict.

Our work focuses on the following key issues:

Land rights and economic opportunities (LEO)

The overall of this programme is to help millions of rural men and women lift themselves out of a life of poverty and inequality by increasing their access to and control over productive land and assets from the state. This includes ensuring enhanced and equitable economic opportunity and increased access and power in markets.

The LEO programme has a two-fold approach: focusing on advocacy and campaigning and community-based programming.  The national campaigning and advocacy work on land rights is aimed at securing land rights to enable rural women and men, (especially small land holders and tenants) living in poverty to gain and retain access to land for their own production and financial security. 

The community-based programme focuses on economic opportunities for the rural poor in rural enterprise and agricultural development.  It aims to enable smallholder farmers, the largest proportion of labour engaged in the agricultural sector, to strengthen their power in the markets and will empower them to demand services and investment from government and private sector.

Girl's education

Female literacy is the key driver of change for women’s rights. Studies have shown that there is an explicit link between the lack of economic opportunities and illiteracy with poverty and violence against women.

Pakistan has made a commitment to achieve gender equality and empowerment through equal access to all levels of education by 2015, as expressed in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). However, political will, policy reforms and sustained financing are required to meet these targets. 

Oxfam is working to ensure equitable access to quality education for girls, particularly for those living in rural poverty where incidences of violence are also high.  

In pictures: Helping young girls enjoy a quality education

We work at the community level through local partners to advocate for the value and relevance of education for girls to strengthen their communities’ capacities. On a national scale, we focus on improving dialogue between the government and civil society to promote the girl’s education agenda.

Ending violence against women

Oxfam aims to facilitate the creation of a society where women are secure and safe from all forms of violence by addressing the direct forms of violence and aiming for a change in discriminatory attitudes and beliefs.

Studies show that 80% of women in Pakistan are victims of  domestic violence and one in every three women are subjected to some form of violence. Oxfam's work focuses on national level advocacy, which includes amendments and repeals of discriminatory laws and policies denying women their fundamental rights.

Our work aims to strengthen and build multi-stakeholder alliances at the district and national level to focus on effective implementation of legislation and to support women who are at risk or are survivors of violence.

Humanitarian response and preparedness, disaster risk reduction and climate change

Pakistan is prone to natural and human-induced hazards. The high frequency of natural disasters, increased vulnerability and high risk experienced by the country in the past decades, particularly due to floods, earthquakes and droughts further perpetuates existing inequality and poverty.

In 2010 Pakistan was hit by its worst natural disaster – floodwaters inundated up to one-fifth of the country and affected an estimated 20 million people. Oxfam launched an immediate response to provide aid to over 2.4 million people.

In September 2011, more than 9 million people were affected by flooding for the second year running in Pakistan’s Sindh province.

More on Oxfam's Pakistan Floods response

Oxfam's Pakistan programme, through its work in different disaster-prone areas of the country, and advocacy with different stakeholders, tries to ensure that climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction become national and local priorities.

We strive to address chronic and acute vulnerabilities to disasters and increase the resilience of poor men and women to natural disasters and climate change. Oxfam continues to support national, district and community level disaster risk reduction processes through our projects in the highly disaster-prone districts of Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and Kashmir.

We are also committed to helping people rebuild their lives and livelihoods during and after emergencies. We are currently working in the conflict affected areas in northern Pakistan to ensure basic health and sanitation facilities for those who have been displaced by the conflict and also provide them with assistance to help rebuild their livelihoods.

 

Last updated: June 2010