Restoring Livelihoods After Floods: Gender-sensitive response and community-owned recovery in Pakistan

Heavy monsoon rains beginning in late July 2010 triggered unprecedented flooding in Pakistan which ploughed a swathe of destruction more than 1,000 kilometres long over the course of three weeks and destroyed more than two million hectares of crops. By November 2010, 7.2 million people were still receiving food aid, and restoration of livelihoods was seen as a key priority. Oxfam, as part of the Consortium of British Humanitarian Agencies (CBHA),3
• an Emergency Food Security and Livelihoods (ESFL) programme to kick-start livelihood regeneration, targeting more than 25,000 households (150,000 individuals); and with funding from ECHO in association with local partners, launched an early recovery programme in Sindh, targeting approximately 53,000 households (318,000 people) and featuring two sectors of intervention:
• Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene projects, which in total served 48,000 households (288,000 individuals).
Where possible, activities targeted the same communities in order to achieve a more holistic impact. At the outset of the Oxfam intervention, households were asked to register one household member to receive cheques or inputs. They were encouraged to put women forward, but this was not mandatory. As a result, 25 per cent of direct beneficiaries were women, totalling approximately 6,500 households (39,000 individuals). Of households where women were directly targeted, approximately 60 per cent were female-headed, while the remaining households put forward a woman for direct participation or receipt of inputs. However, regardless of the sex of the household member directly participating or receiving inputs, it was intended that interventions should benefit the entire household, including women.
This paper will examine the extent to which this was achieved. In particular it will consider and evaluate (a) the involvement of women in programme planning and implementation; (b)
Restoring Livelihoods After Floods: Gender-sensitive response and community-owned recovery 3
constraints that limited their involvement; and (c) programme outputs and outcomes, and the views of women on these.