The Community Resilience Activity North (CRAN), dedicated to fostering community resilience, spearheaded a comprehensive two-day workshop focused on flood recovery strategies for Sindh and Baluchistan. The event aimed to generate innovative ideas and proposals to collaborate with the governments of Sindh and Baluchistan in their efforts to address the aftermath of floods, a news release said.
The workshop brought together key stakeholders, experts, and community leaders. The workshop was attended by the representatives of USAID, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Community Resilience Activity North (CRAN), Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMA), district administration, directorate of climate change. Sindh, Baluchistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The initiative underscores CRANs commitment to facilitating collaboration between communities and government bodies. By providing a platform for dialogue and idea exchange, CRAN seeks to contribute to the development of sustainable and resilient strategies that can withstand the challenges posed by natural disasters.
The workshop addressed various facets of flood recovery, including infrastructure rebuilding, community empowerment, and the integration of technological solutions. Participants explored opportunities for leveraging resources, both human and technological, to enhance the overall resilience of the affected regions.
The speakers focused on the need of the hour to increase cooperation between CRA-North, Government Entities and other stakeholders to speed up the process of flood relief in the most affected regions and make communities more resilient and prone to future disaster events.
This was followed by an ice-breaking and objective-setting session by the organizers. Later, JannatDurrani, Deputy Chief of Party Community Resilience Activity North (CRA-N) shed light on the background and main idea of the workshop and how it would help gain more effective results and outcomes of the flood relief interventions carried out by CRA-North and its partners.
Next, KashifKarim Democracy, Rights and Governance Specialist USAID Pakistan briefed the participants about the USAID and CRA-North Resilience Journey based on resilience interventions, especially related to the communities of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Sindh and Baluchistan, carried throughout the years. Following this session, a detailed briefing was given by Ali Jamali, Deputy Director of PDMA Planning and Coordination Baluchistan, on the CRA-N Flood Strategy for the affected regions. CRA-N has a comprehensive plan for making local communities more resilient to flood and other natural disasters as well as to mitigate the effects of any future natural disasters.
Subsequently, a team building activity was carried out with the title of Blue-Sky Thinking – Envisioning Possibilities to jump-start the brainstorming process of the participants in order to come up with creative solutions and ideas for flood relief and resilience.
