Minister
of State and Chairperson BISP MNA Marvi Memon and Secretary BISP Mr. Omar Hamid
Khan participated in a high level ‘Consultative Meeting of Shock Responsive
Social Protection’ organized by World Food Programme (WFP), a technical advisor
and development partner of Government of Pakistan. Acting Country Head WFP Ms.
Katrien Anna M. Ghoos, Head of Nutrition WFP Ms. Cecilia Garze, and Member
Operations NDMA Brig. Mukhtar Ahmed were also present in the Consultative
Meeting.
The
purpose of the meeting was to bring the relevant key Disaster Risk Management,
Humanitarian and Social Protection actors together to share views on how
effective coordination mechanisms and institutional arrangements can be
established to accelerate the move towards shock responsive social protection
systems in the country.
In
the meeting, WFP presented the finding of Oxford Policy Management Institute
(OPMI) report which unfolds the nexus between disaster relief and social
protection system in Pakistan. The presentation identified several strategies
for transforming standalone cash based emergency responses to a systematic
shock responsive platform by leveraging existing safety net programmes, their underlying
systems and partnerships.
During
the discussion, the participants from BISP and NDMA described the roles of
their organizations in the emergency situations and deliberated the way forward
for aligning the efforts through coordination mechanisms among organizations
and institutional arrangements which would enhance the impact of emergency
responses in all its phases, without missing any key actor and avoiding
duplication of efforts. It was stressed that role of social protection in
disaster response needs to be articulated implying a pivotal role of BISP along
with NDMA, PDMAs and other stakeholders.
Secretary
BISP opined that it was high time to adopt coordinated mechanisms as the risk
of covariate shocks in the form of natural hazards is particularly high in
Pakistan. He suggested that BISP, NDMA and WFP, on priority basis, need to sign
a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for developing institutional arrangements
for coordinated disaster response. In the meantime, BISP and NDMA could work
out the data sets of the populations which are prone to disasters as BISP is
the custodian of National Socio-Economic Registry (NSER) of more than 155
million populations with GPS reading. The participants appreciated the
recommendation and the representative of NDMA indicated the possibility of the
MoU after in-house review of the proposal.
Chairperson
BISP, in her concluding remarks, stated that Pakistan has good institutions in
place for disaster response but there is a need to learn from international experience
and institutionalize a coordinated set up with all the necessary components of
disaster response. She recommended constituting a technical group comprising of
all the stakeholders like BISP, NDMA, PDMAs, Ministry of Climate Change and
Meteorological Department at federal, provincial and regional level including
AJ&K, FATA and GB. The recommended technical group could delineate the
details of cooperation mechanism and necessary institutional arrangements. She
also stressed upon disaster response on an equitable basis for all regions and
communities in the country.
At
the conclusion of the meeting, Secretary BISP, Acting Country Head WFP and NDMA
representative undertook signing of “Commitment Certificate”
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