1. 13. Lecture Enhancing peace for poverty reduction.
Poverty Reduction
UNDP helps improve the living conditions of the poor and disadvantaged through policy
advice and program implementation. It strengthens research capacities at the federal and
provincial level to track poverty expenditures and formulate pro-poor policies and
programmes. It helps the government to establish systems to monitor and report on the
Millennium Development Goals. The community based programmes increase employment
and livelihood opportunities through increasing the social capital of the poor to optimally
utilize their physical, financial and human resources. Dedicated programs target
disadvantaged women to enhance their income and employable skills to reduce gender
disparity and reduce poverty.
Over the last couple of years humanitarian, relief and recovery efforts dominated the
agrarian landscape of Pakistan. Amidst emerging priorities, the UNDP program realigned
its support to provide immediate livelihoods support to over 4000 households through
provision of agricultural inputs. With over 22,000 hacters of land brought under cultivation
in both flood and non flood areas of Punjab in 2010 alone, these initiatives will serve as key
platforms for the design and implementation of UNDP's early recovery efforts in Pakistan.
Democratic Governance
UNDP helps governance institutions at the federal, provincial and district levels including
the Parliament become strong and credible to enable them to respond better to the needs
of the Pakistani citizens. Public services at he local levels are improved by UNDP’s efforts to
support devolution, police reforms, and better community access to quality public services
such as health and education.
UNDP Pakistan has supported governing institutions through support to community
mobilization and formation of Community Citizen Boards and participatory approaches in
local development. UNDP has supported national elections through the creation of IT
systems and systematic training to electrol personnel to enhance the capacities of the
Election Commission of Pakistan. For the first time in history of Pakistan a Women
Parliamentary Caucus has been formed to advocate for gender-related issues. This Caucus
has representation from across party lines.

2. Environment & Climate Change
UNDP offers policy advice to the government on environmental issues while engaging civil
society and communities to address these issues at the grass root level. Core areas of
interventions include natural resources management, urban development, biodiversity and
climate change. UNDP has supported the formulation of the National Climate Change Policy
and initiated the first-ever UNFCC Adaptation Fund.
In the support of sustainable development in this sector, UNDP Pakistan has played key
roles in the formulation of the National Policies on Climate Change, Forests and Wetlands.
The agency has involved communities in environmental management and introduced
energy efficient housing technologies in communities.
At the community level, UNDP has supported sustainable conservation initiatives
contributing to the well being of the community such as trophy hunting where the
proceeds go towards projects that are essential for the development of the area.
Crisis Prevention and Recovery
UNDP deals with humanitarian crisis and natural disasters. It monitors emergency
situations and has undertaken recovery activities in natural disasters such as draughts,
floods and earthquakes. UNDP undertook a comprehensive early recovery response to the
2005 earthquake, helping restore and strengthen governing institutions to respond to the
disaster and formulate disaster risk management plans. In order to respond to the IDP
crisis, UNDP is executing a program focusing on building and maintaining peace in
Malakand division through various governance, livelihoods and disaster management
related interventions. In response to the floods of 2010, UNDP is undertaking a programme
across 29 districts of Pakistan to help people rebuild their lives. Through the Early
Recovery programme UNDP will restore livelihoods, build basic and critical community
infrastructure and strengthen local institutions for disaster response and recovery.
Gender is a cross-cutting theme.
In responding to these disasters and crises, UNDP works closely with the National,
Provincial and District Disaster Management Authorities for strengthening, capacity
building and risk reduction response systems throughout Pakistan