Pakistan FSC/WG appreciated all stakeholders for extending their efforts and timely support to finalize the Pakistan Hu-manitarian Strategic Plan 2016 which highlight 3.5 people in needs for humanitarian assis-tance. To operationalize this strategic plan, humanitarian community needs $442 million for the year 2016. However, for meeting the food security and initial early recovery liveli-hood needs, FSC stakeholders are in need to mobilize $165.5 million to target the 1.5 million people including over one mil-lion returnees of FATA.

In view of fragile security and access, humanitarian partners will able to provide the lifesav-ing nutritious relief food in the areas of displacement and re-turns that successfully feed in addressing the hunger and nutrition needs of women, men, children and most vulner-able and elderly people. For addressing access to food secu-rity, the cash based interven-tions are supplementing to improve the purchasing power as part of relief during dis-placement and returns. To promote the smooth and efficient return process, hu-

manitarian actors plan to target to restore the longer term food security and means of liveli-hoods through diversified ap-proaches for early recovery by providing assistance in agricul-ture, livestock, poultry, related community infrastructure to nearly one million people in areas of returns of FATA through efficient and well-coordinated mechanism by involving all stakeholders on government under the umbrel-la of Food Security Cluster/ Working Group.

Humanitarian Strategic Plan 2016

The assessment was carried out Food Security Cluster member organization in collaboration with FAO, WFP, Concern Worldwide and Government of Sindh with the technical support from Food and Econ-omy Group (FEG). The as-sessment was done in three drought prone districts of

Sindh including Jamshoro, Umerkot and Tharparkar. The main objectives of the assess-ment were; a) to assess the impact of the 2013-2015 drought on local livelihoods in some of the worst drought affected districts of Sindh Province, b) to understand household coping strategies in crises and the extent of season-al out-migration, c) to recom-mend what resources are re-quired to meet the needs of the affected population, d) to un-derstand how they secure their food and income in a reference year, and what food or income gaps emerge after their produc-tion shortfalls and impacts of price changes. Agricultural crops are grown during two seasons. Summer

(kharif) season crops are har-vested in October, post-monsoon (July-August). Kharif season crops include rice, cot-ton, chili, sugar cane, sorghum and millet. One of the key veg-etables grown in Sindh, namely Onion, is harvested between Kharif and Rabi seasons usual-ly from November to Febru-

Household Economy Analysis (HEA) Sindh 2015

January 2016

For Period: October - December 2015

Cash Working Group Updates

2

Returns Updates of KP/FATA

2

Map of 4W FSL Activi-

ties in KP/FATA

3

Sindh Drought Need As-

sessment (SDNA) 2015

4

IPC Acute Food Security

Analysis (June - December

2015)

5

Inside this newsletter:

Upcoming Events:

Sindh Drought Need As-sessment 2015 Report

Household Economy Analy-sis 2015 Report

CaLP Level-II training in Islamabad

IPC National Workshop to Launch the Results of IPC Acute Analysis

Humanitarian Strategic Planning Report for first Quarter

Contingency and Prepared-ness Planning 2016 for Food Security

Mapping and Contingency Stock Piling from FSC members

Nangarparkar - Traditional method

of threshing Millet

Umerkot - HEA team members in

Community Interview

Food Security Newsletter

Page 2 Food Secur i ty Newsletter For Per iod: October - December 2015

ary. Winter (Rabi) season crops include wheat and oil seeds, which are planted in December and harvested in March and April. The agricultural sector is based on a system of landowners who rent out land to many sharecroppers. The sharecroppers, as well as the landless agricultural laborers, come from poor and very poor households. Livestock is also another main source of their livelihood and they keep herds of cat-tle, buffaloes, goats and sheep while they

keep camels, donkeys and horses as means of transportation goods. Livestock mainly rely on natural fodder and the fodder of their crops residuals of cluster bean and millet but wheat straws used to buy for large ruminants by better-off and middle wealth groups pf the community during off-seasons. Another important trend was observed in poor and very poor wealth groups is livestock migration for fodder normally from November to March be-cause of limited availability of fodder. Livestock mainly looked after by females while the decision of selling livestock lies with males only. Other livelihood sources include casual labor, labor migration and self-employment (embroidery, shopkeepers, and other small entrepreneurs) in which almost one person from each household is involved in middle, poor and very poor wealth groups. The high levels of chronic debt point to entrenched poverty. In the reference year – an average production year – loans of Rupees 20,000 were taken by poor and very poor households to cope with their

annual expenses. As they cannot repay the entire loan during the same year, chronic debt builds. Besides their regular household expenses, spending money on purchasing tobacco, cigarettes, betel nuts (as Chaliya) and betel leaves (as Paan) is very common in. The detail analysis report of HEA is still under being finalized and will be issued by Feb-ruary 2016.

Cash Working Group Updates

The Cash working Group meeting was held on 28th October 2015 in ACTED office whereas the standardization of wages in Sindh was discussed for initiation. CWG also requested the member organizations to nominate one focal person for CWG to update the contact list. A two day workshop on Cash Transfer Pro-gramming was organized by UNOCHA and NDMA on 4-5 November, 2015 at Marriott Hotel, Islamabad, with the objectives; a) to share experiences, best practices and chal-lenges on CTP in emergency and relief op-erations, b) to exchange ideas on key policy topics and institutional infra-structure for

supporting CTP and c) to propose a way forward for integrating CTP in prepared-ness and response planning. There have been constant discussions regarding the way forward for integration of other sec-tors implementing CTP in the CWG and to invite more organizations implementing multi-sectoral CTP. This also emanated as one of the recommendations in the men-tioned workshop as well. Later in the HCT, it was discussed and agreed upon that the existing group will be expanded to include organizations implementing multi-sectoral CTP.

To map out specific areas of collaboration with the Government of Pakistan on op-portunities to use Cash Based Transfers as part of Emergency Response in the Pun-jab, the World Food Programme (WFP) Pakistan engaged the services of Mr. Ru-ben Villanueva as Social Safety-net Con-sultant for six weeks in Nov-Dec 2015 in which he worked closely with relevant stakeholders focusing on exploring oppor-tunities whereby Cash Based Transfers could be effectively used as a modality to provide immediate assistance to the peo-ple affected by disasters.

Returns Update KP/FATA

Returns to FATA continued during the last quarter as the phase-II Returns timeline ended and phase-III started. At current, the total returned families stand at 119,849 that include Khyber-72,001, NWA -34,294, SWA-9,863, Kurram-3041 and Orakzai-710. The current remaining caseload in displace-ment is at 182,385 as IDPs. Return assis-

tance both in displacement and return are on-going with WFP assisting all displaced and returning families through general food distribution, while families from NWA receives additional cash assistance of 12,000PKR per month to all families. The returning families have been facilitat-ed with return transportation grant of

10,000PKR per family while initial return assistance was 25,000PKR per family by FDMA. The FAO has supported 15,000 returning families in Khyber with Rabi season inputs (Wheat, vegetable seeds to all and fertilizer to some families), 10,000 returning fami-lies in SWA with Wheat, Vegetable seeds

Tharparkar - Livestock under the shade of tree

after grazing

Tharparkar - Team member in group for House-

hold Questioner

Page 3 Food Secur i ty Newsletter For Per iod: October - December 2015

and fertilizer (all), 2,100 families with the same in Kurram agency while land reclama-tion and irrigation infrastructure activities are going on in these agencies and NWA. The WFP assisted on average more than 200,000 families with monthly food ration during the last quarter. Additionally, Assis-tance to 5,500 families in Khyber is being supported under CFW in a coordinated

response structure with FAO whereby WFP is facilitating families in areas where FAO has provided inputs in order to gal-vanize the overall impact of green sector intervention. The Food Security Cluster has also been able to get 1 million USD under the Paki-stan Humanitarian Pool Fund (PHPF) to support returning families in South Wazir-

istan Agency with agriculture seeds, tools and inputs while providing additional as-sistance through training and land recla-mation for over 3,700 families. Imple-menting partners were also finalized while the projects are expected to start by mid-February with subject to NOC issuance from FDMA.

Page 4 Food Secur i ty Newsletter For Per iod: October - December 2015

Sindh Drought Need Assessment (SDNA) 2015

FAO Pakistan is leading Sindh Drought Needs Assessment in partnership with WFP, UNICEF, UNOCHA, ACTED, IOM, Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA-Sindh), National Dis-aster Management Authority (NDMA) and Bureau of Statistics-Sindh. The as-sessment is funded by ECHO and aims to assess livelihood, food security, nutri-tion, access to health, change in agricul-ture production, livestock and physical assets, migratory patterns, and water and sanitation situation in the drought affect-ed areas. In total 3565 households were interviewed. The sampled households located in 100 union councils, 33 tehsils in 9 districts of Sindh (Khairpur, Sanghar, Mirpur Khas, Umerkot, Tharparkar, Badin, Thatta, Jamshoro and Dadu) in October-November 2015. Focus group discussion and market assessments were also con-ducted to get community level infor-mation on irrigation, agriculture prob-lems and needs, and assess food and non-food items’ availability and prices re-spectively.

Agriculture harvest reduction reveals that a wheat harvest reduction was high-est with 81% in extreme water scarcity areas in South East, followed by 32% in moderate/low water scarce areas in the West and 24% in low water scarce areas in Irrigated zone. Likewise, the reduction in Cluster bean harvest was highest with 58% in extreme water scarcity areas in the East followed by 56% and 52% in extreme water scarcity areas in West and Irrigated Zone respectively. The highest reduction in harvest of millet was 53% reported in extreme water scarcity areas

in East followed by 44% in extreme water scarcity areas of Irrigated zone and 33% in moderate water scarcity areas in West zone. Around 31% households abandoned wheat cultivation in extreme water scarcity areas in West zone, 49% stopped Cluster bean cultivation in low water scarce areas in Irri-gated zone and 50% abandoned millet culti-vation moderate water scarce areas in West zone. To overcome the effects of drought, farmers’ main strategy is a shift to other livelihoods, for around 42% in all regions but irrigated. Irrigated farmers favour drought resistant crops or late growing, whereas farmers in sparse vegetation areas mostly grow mixed crops. The most re-quired supports are improved inputs (seeds and fertilizers) followed by irrigation repair, or new irrigation system, agriculture credit and others. Livestock, owned by almost all surveyed households, though the proportion was a bit lower in the irrigated zone (80% - 90% of HHs). Medium and large farmers own the most animals, followed by landless house-holds relying on the agricultural sector. Sharecroppers own the least animals on average. The households reported signifi-cant reduction in the ownership of live-stock due to multiple causes. Overall, the number of cows and buffalos reduced by 35%, sheep and goats by 41%, poultry by 28% and equines by 25%. The highest reduction was reported in the South East zone followed by West, East and irrigated zone. In the South East zone, number of cows/buffalos reduced by 67%, sheep/goats and poultry by 58% apiece and eq-uines by 41%. However, excluding other causes, drought alone caused the highest reduction in number of animals as follows: 64% reduction in number cows/buffalos in extreme water scarcity areas in South East zone, 59% reduction in sheep/goats in moderate water scarcity areas in West zone, 54% and 50% reduction in poultry and equines in extreme water scarcity areas in South East, and moderate water scarcity areas in East zone respectively. Lack of fodder or water and disease are the primary causes of reduction in the number of animals. On causes of change in number of animals, 29% households reported dis-ease, 26% distress sale, 24% fodder/water scarcity, 16% normal sale, and 5% reported other reasons. Amongst the causes, disease

and fodder/water scarcity were most report-ed (by 64% and 51% households % respec-tively) in the South East, distress sale by 45% households in the West zone, normal sale by 17% households in Irrigated zone. Fodders, medicines/vaccines, restocking are the most needed supports reported by live-stock owners. Livelihood shift was observed in livelihood sources, and change is most noted in case of agricultural labor, crop and livestock sales and private sector/NGOs employment. Two years ago, 30% households were earn-ing livelihood from agriculture labor, 9% from crop sales, 21% from livestock sales, 29% from employment in private sector and 11% from other sources including handi-crafts. Currently, over half of households earning livelihood from private sector em-ployment, 21% from agriculture labor, 4% from crop sales, 13% from livestock sales and 11% from other sources such as handi-crafts and government employment.

Sanghar - Female headed household interview

Mirpurkhas - Enumerator while taking MUAC

Umerkot - Lan prepared for wheat c but cultivation

depends on rain

IPC Acute Food Security Analysis (June - December 2015)

Page 5 Food Secur i ty Newsletter For Per iod: October - December 2015

The district wise Integrated Food Security Phase Classification Analysis (IPC) for Jun – Dec 2015, has showed comparatively improved food security situation across the country. The area level acute food security analysis carried out mainly by the experts and professionals mostly from government line departments, IPC Global Partners, UN agencies and civil society organizations. A total of five IPC Acute Food Security Analysis Workshops (each one of 04 days) were carried out with in Sindh, Punjab, KPK, GB, FATA and AJK, (Nov –Dec 2015). Resultantly 07 regional/provincial/sub national level IPC Maps and popula-tion tables were prepared after extensive analysis and shared with TWG members for their comments and feedback. The analysis results showed that all the districts in Punjab province were classified in phase 1, however outcome elements

including nutritional status and mortality rates are showing stress situation and needs immediate attention for improvements are required from government and develop-ment actors. Food Security situation in some sub district areas of the Southern Punjab districts especially adjacent to Sindh Province and desert areas is considerably in stressed condition and were classified in Phase 02. In Sindh Province, 11 districts were classi-fied in Phase 01, and 11 districts in Phase 02, only District Badin and Tharparkar were categorized in Phase 3. Recurrent natural disasters in Sindh, including floods and drought have caused the food security situation in Sindh to be considerably com-promised. Operating with very weak nutri-tion and food security baseline indicators the conditions in the province are exacer-

bated by the frequent onslaught of climate related disasters. At the time of the last analysis in November of 2015, there was some improvement in the drought affected areas as a result of monsoon rains. Howev-er with no incidences of riverine flooding or heavy rainfall in the 6 months preceding the analysis most of the irrigated districts were found to be in Phase 1, with suffi-cient on farm livelihood opportunities and significant food production in the districts. In Gilgit Baltistan region entire districts falls in phase 02. While in Pakistan Admin-istrated Kashmir (PAK) out of 10, four districts are classified in Phase 1, five in Phase 2 and only district in Phase 03. Both GB and PAK/AJK are the food defi-cit regions of the country where food defi-cit is covered through provision of subsi-dies by the federal government. Besides the stressed situation of outcome elements i.e. mortality, Nutritional status, and im-munization coverage which are important factors contributing to food security of the people, if the subsidy on wheat is removed, it will drastically effect the food security situation of both GB and AJK/PAK. IPC Acute Food Security Analysis for FA-TA showed that two Agencies (North & South Waziristan) in FATA region were

classified in phase 4. The decade long se-curity unrest, insurgencies and the corre-sponding military operations as part of war against terrorism in FATA agencies result-ing in massive spontaneous and planned displacement of its inhabitants, sporadic unplanned and planned returns and re-displacements in certain cases are consid-ered as the key factors in determining the overall food security situation in these areas. Besides, low food consumption score and low literacy ratio complements in aiding to the deteriorated situation re-sulting in defining the overall food security status as poor in FATA. The exercise, considering all available data on IPC indi-cators and correlating factors suggested North Waziristan and South Waziristan agencies to be classified under Phase 4, with probability of improvement in food security situation over the next 6 months

to Phase 3, subject to promising returns as planned and triggered humanitarian re-sponse by both humanitarian agencies and the Government. In terms of food security and nutrition, KP province is relatively better, with most indicators pointing to an ameliorated situa-tion positioning it next to Punjab. It has a high percentage of agricultural workers. Women’s education/literacy rate is very poor. Acute malnutrition rates are high. The IPC analysis for December 2015 showed that 15 districts are generally food secure and hence classified in Phase 1. Another 6 districts are classified as moder-ately food secure or in stressed situation hence classified in phase 2. Four districts (Chitral, Kohistan, Tor Ghar and Tank) are classified as highly food insecure or in crisis situation hence comes under phase-3.

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United

Nations NARC Premises, Park Road, Chak Shahzad, Islamabad.

We’re on the Web!

http://foodsecuritycluster.net/countries/pakistan

https://pak.humanitarianresponse.info/

Food Security Co-leads

Strengthening Humanitarian Response for Availability, Accessibility and Utilization

of Food. Designed and edited by Saifa Asif (Assistant Cluster Coordinator)

Food Security Newsletter

Page 6 Food Secur i ty Newsletter For Per iod: October - December 2015

the worsening law and order situation as well as less rainfall. The remaining 16 districts were classified in Phase 2 while 06 districts were categorized in Phase 1.

Mr. Fakhre Alam Khan - FAO

(fakhre.alam@fao.org)

0346-8544184

Mr. Zulfiquar Rao - WFP

(zulfiquar.rao@wfp.org)

0300-8505295

In Balochistan Province, total 10 dis-tricts were classified in Phase 3. Food is scarce in these areas due to little availa-bility of water coupled with long drought periods. Furthermore, the area offers few livelihood opportunities. Limited access to food and a large per-centage (up to 70 %) of the population living below the poverty line are the major contributing factors. Among the principal reasons pushing districts to-wards high levels of food insecurity is

KP/FATA - IPC Acute Food Security Analysis Workshop