Some of you may be aware of the rehabilitation works I am undertaking in my paternal province, Balochistan, across six villages in the district of Jaffarabad. When I say "I," it means "we," because nothing is possible alone—especially when there are many moving parts and partners required to comprehensively complete any endeavour.
The idea of comprehensive, complete resilience for the poorest of the poor and the most vulnerable of our citizens emerged after many years of working with disaster victims. I call them victims because vulnerability removes agency or choices; restoring that ability in a citizen or a family has to be taught, restored, and built through investment, development, and initiatives. As a human rights activist first and a professional public policy specialist in the disaster management sector, I have pivoted to working as a social worker in my private capacity.
In 2022, when the rains and flooding hit Sindh and Balochistan, I chose to "adopt" seven villages in the southern parts of Balochistan. From the original seven villages—Bandh Manik, Ali Bhugti Hussain, Bux Bhugti, Arz Muhammad, Hindu Ghot, Allahabad, and Arbab Malla—the efforts have, as of 2025, been concentrated on three villages for complete 100% resilience: Hindu Ghot (formerly part of Sher Dil Bhugti), Arbab Malla, and Allahabad. This resilience is aimed at addressing climate change challenges and poverty.
From the very beginning, I realised there was an opportunity here to build permanent resilience—if I intervened strategically, strengthening the foundational building blocks for a permanent solution, this could actually transform lives. Having worked in this sector within development organisations and government, I know that institutional structures do not—and cannot—achieve their mandated claims of risk reduction, poverty alleviation, or resilience investment given their current working impetus. They are designed to fail. Resilience cannot be achieved in three years or through randomised interventions without establishing the foundations to enable any and all interventions effectively. Disconnected projects driven by financial availability rather than needs are not the way to eliminate obstacles and build resilience.
I am writing this piece to share how I envisaged an intervention model in Jaffarabad, in a handful of villages, as a possible example of how it should be done for a few citizens (800 souls). I also aim to highlight the challenges that emerged and the lessons that could provide insights for professionals engaged in this sector to achieve better outcomes.
As the saying goes, "It takes a village."
Building blocks must be in a specific order to be effective and to enable and support the structures that flow out of those investments. Therefore, if the intention of relief or development work is to remove the elements that keep vulnerabilities in place, the planning must start with a foundational work plan of investments that strengthen the outcomes of the next building blocks of resilience development. To break the cycle of poverty and achieve permanent risk reduction, there must be a sequence of interventions for results. Otherwise, it is a waste of everyone’s precious time and resources.
I chose to first provide physical security by building disaster risk-reduced homes for families. I added a condition that the land and home must be in the woman’s name to further trigger empowerment and transformative ideas within the family, community, and, above all, the women and girl children of the household. The only exception was where the head of the home was a male widower; in such cases, an undertaking to distribute inheritance equally between male and female children was also discussed. Therefore, in this model of resilience, a house is the first building block to any permanent resilience development. There is absolutely no point in conducting awareness-raising campaigns when the vulnerable are homeless, tired, scared, starving, and concerned about where to safely shelter their unwell bodies and families. Providing physical and mental security creates the space for building other resilience-building blocks.
Moreover, some non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are better than others at social mobilisation and have different focuses or strengths in this activity. My housing reconstruction partner is SPO (Strengthening Participatory Organisation), which has a strong track record of progressive social mobilisation. I also asked SAHIL to join the team because their focus on children’s and mothers’ rights, in particular, added value to our engagement with a permanently traumatised community. Additionally, the ratio of children to adults (like everywhere in Pakistan) was huge, requiring specialists in child rights and protection to be part of the resilience development team.
There was another particular reason I wanted to have more than one NGO partner in these villages: the development sector and its actors often work in silos. Their natural mode of operation is to be paid to do a project with specific and separate activities, even when they are working on a large, single project. Activities are driven by separate and specific funding streams. The language of coordination and cooperation exists, but complementing, augmenting, and building upon each other’s work is rare. The unspoken rule is to avoid stepping on each other’s toes. I am proposing the opposite, at least in these Jaffarabad villages. Helping and working together as one team, backstopping each other toward one goal, is required in the complicated labyrinths of issues that need to be tackled.
I chose to first provide physical security by building disaster risk-reduced homes for families. I added a condition that the land and home must be in the woman’s name to further trigger empowerment and transformative ideas within the family
I asked SAHIL to work with SPO to create and mobilise village community organisations for the building of homes, but also to speak to mothers about cleanliness in the village, helping the builders construct their homes, and participating actively in the rebuilding of their own lives.
The challenges of transferring land and home ownership to women had to be dealt with piecemeal and openly discussed in the community to overcome resistance. Above all, the need for support to accompany villagers to various government offices and navigate challenging bureaucracies and prejudices could not be addressed without serious assistance. To this end, I cannot thank and recognise Noor Baloch from SPO enough, who extended himself well beyond his office hours and even worked on holidays to facilitate and complete the necessary tasks.
Through the established community organisations, many conversations were possible, and related matters were raised and addressed. For example, what emerged as a significant impediment immediately was the number of villagers who did not have a National Identity Card (CNIC) or faced challenges renewing their identity cards. Another horrifying truth emerged: birth registration and B-forms for children were 100% absent. Shocking as this was, this challenge had to be addressed to get children into a literacy program and enable their mothers to legally own the land.
The interventions required for obtaining CNICs and B-forms have been detailed in six other articles. The important lesson here for the resilience development model is that, beyond the multiple partners necessary for permanent resilience, there is work required that is not funded. If I could monetise or evaluate the time spent on the issue of getting CNICs renewed or issued, it could amount to a significant percentage of the budget allocated for housing reconstruction.
There was no partner or organisation funded to untangle or tackle these obstacles. In fact, several project officers working on birth registration and CNICs in Jaffarabad attached their staff to me when I navigated the necessary corridors to address identity card issues—because there was no way they could do it themselves, no matter how funded or mandated they were. The lesson here was loud and clear: certain interventions require very specific expertise to overcome protracted human resource challenges, and the invisible work and efforts required are never monetised in project outputs. These efforts are perhaps more relevant in the design for effective actions. This, in my opinion, distinguishes an empowered activist from an employee of a development organisation. There is no permanent resilience development possible without the activist.
Another champion who walked this journey of transforming lives in Jaffarabad is Marzia Yunus. Marzia had helped tremendously in distributing relief goods among the needy in many districts of Balochistan (Pishin, Quetta, Mastung, Dera Bugti, Jhal Magsi, Bolan, Kech, Naseerabad, Sohbatpur, and Jaffarabad) during the relief phase in 2022. Together, we followed some women back to their villages. I began writing about their challenges and permanent vulnerabilities to the many man-made and natural disasters they were caught in. The cycle of pain continued through generations for many here. At first, writing about these women provided a humanisation of who we were "assisting" from afar. As the water receded and through my writings, I was approached by many well-wishers who wanted to continue their assistance; thus began the initial push to operationalise permanent resilience investments. We began by helping a few widows rebuild resilient, risk-reduced homes.
Another key partner in this journey are the engineers of UN-Habitat, my former colleagues, without whom we could not have designed the disaster risk-reduced homes. Babar Azam designed a home keeping in mind Jaffarabad’s risks (heat, waterlogging, rains, flooding) along with the acute challenges of human resource skills for building safe homes. The designs were not theoretical; they were tested by UN-Habitat for what is suitable where and why.
For example, while many were pushing for adobe (mud) homes as a rebuilding option, my engineer colleagues advised against this. The Jaffarabad landscape was vulnerable to water, but more importantly, the technical expertise required for resilient mud blocks in a waterlogged area was unavailable in Jaffarabad. This advice and technical knowledge were invaluable and remain an example of the multiple partners required to build permanent resilience comprehensively. A partner whose contribution cannot be quantifiably measured but is invaluable. Furthermore, UN-Habitat trained SPO staff and engineers in the initial design and safety parameters before I raised funds and financed the program. This foundational building block could not be left to a regular contractor or a supervising engineer untrained in disaster risk reduction measures and safety protocols throughout the building process.
Once the design and building materials were decided, it allowed the next building block to be enabled: a modern, dignified habitat. I wanted the homes to be modern and have the amenities low-income citizens deserve in the 21st century. A mindset shift was also necessary when planning such interventions: What should be the appropriate standard of human habitat in the 21st century in Pakistan? Should the cost of low-income homes come at the expense of dignity, development, or 21st-century standards? Should we exclude a bathroom or a kitchen? What would that do to hygiene practices, which directly feed into the welfare of the family?
Building a modern home would cost much more than the models currently being used in all other low-income housing initiatives, but I wasn’t working for an agency or a donor keen to show units rather than permanently providing a solution. My primary interest remains permanent resilience and a solution that brings people out of the cycle of vulnerability permanently. A mud hut was not going to do the trick or effectively transform them out of multifaceted vulnerabilities.
This program was initially funded by Zakat funds. Individuals from family and friends, as well as many other well-wishers, provided funds for the first five widows’ homes. From there, the support grew. One of my conditions—to rebuild homes in the name of women—was particularly attractive to those who funded this effort. But most of all, the feedback was the trust they had because I visited frequently and oversaw the rehabilitation process personally and closely.
Aside from the trust of the supporters, it became evident that I was required on the ground to untangle the myriad of issues—from the land ownership condition, which created social waves in communities where this was never the norm, to navigating various government and political offices. Marzia Yunus, Hameed Umrani, and Noor Baloch were indispensable allies who worked very closely to convince the entire community of the importance of this criterion. "Baji will not build without this paperwork and transfer of ownership," they said. Many challenges followed, and some commitments were reneged upon, but always with consequences that permanently mitigated a repeat. For example, one of the reasons I withdrew my focus from Sher Dil Bhugti, where we built two widows’ homes, was the community’s refusal to transfer land deeds to the remaining women in the village.
They thought that since we had stated we would rebuild the entire village and had built two homes, we were stuck. They did not realise that without transferring ownership to the women, my commitment to them did not exist. Building blocks.
There were some who tried to sway me away from this foundational criterion, but I believe this was the primary foundation upon which permanent resilience would take root. Many homes later, in the remaining villages, Sher Dil Bhugti folks tried to get back into the fold, but I also believe the messaging must remain crystal clear.
This experience gave me an opportunity to reflect on how thin one should spread in creating a model resilient community. One village or seven? This was an inflection point where I decided to focus on rebuilding three villages 100% and later see if I could expedite investments in the remaining four villages.
A mindset shift was also necessary when planning such interventions: What should be the appropriate standard of human habitat in the 21st century in Pakistan?
From January 2023, the permanent resilience development investments would focus first on Hindu Ghot, a hamlet with 100% non-Muslims; Arbab Malla; and Allahabad.
Once the vast number of homes were rebuilt, the second building block was ready to be introduced: education. More accurately, literacy. Balochistan has the worst literacy profile in the country. Almost everyone is semi-literate, if not completely non-literate. These villages were 100% non-literate—forever. Sending them to ghost schools was pointless and a waste of the precious resources I was entrusted with. I tried to reach out to government departments and offices that could perhaps help in a model project, but it was impossible to break through the disinterest. Education is simply not a priority, and it shows.
I was able to get through to UNICEF, who were happy to lend a hand in one village completely, with an ALP (Alternative Learning Program), and temporary ones in Arbab Malla and Allahabad. I am working on them to restart and complete the task of literacy in the latter two villages, instead of ending the unfinished task of educating 120 children and young adults. We continue to wait.
For 20 years, I have advocated for development organisations to start moving away from their dependence on foreign donor funding or the "projectisation" of social development works in Pakistan. With easy funds and a lifestyle to match, we have seen a growing class of development professionals in Pakistan who have done great work—as development bureaucrats.
I am a firm believer that addressing Pakistan’s poverty challenges and development deficits requires a different kind of mindset, motivation, and impetus. Nevertheless, in the existing environment, I was able to seek additional funds from Pakistani corporates—not foreign ones. Naveena Group, a renewable energy organisation based in Lahore, was kind enough to fund 10 resilient homes, which was the first instance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) funding I raised. SPO was the implementing partner. The second corporate I approached was OGDCL, whose operations are extensive across Balochistan. Their commitment to CSR is large but remained in the areas of drilling and exploration. Ahmed Lak, the managing director, who heard me out in multiple meetings, finally agreed, as an experiment, to fund 25 homes in Jaffarabad outside of their CSR zone. I had argued that OGDCL should compare any similar project of theirs to the one I was advocating. If the results they saw were comparatively less transformative, I would not ask OGDCL again. We are now 55 homes later—a fantastic example of how Pakistani corporates can be brought into a powerful, transformative partnership of change.
As the three villages began to build strength and security, especially in Hindu Ghot, the mothers asked for adult literacy programs so that they too could become literate. In many of our community meetings, this has been a recurring request. They want to be able to read, write, and learn to communicate more effectively. I recall in one of our gatherings—in fact, during March 8th, International Women’s Day—many of the women said, "Baji, if only I were educated, I could better understand what you are sharing with us." A reminder of what the "E" in education actually entails. We think education is literacy alone, but it is a gateway to being able to think, comprehend, communicate, and, therefore, self-help.
In this endeavour, I am most grateful to Abdullah Fadil, the resident representative of UNICEF in Islamabad, who facilitated UNICEF Balochistan to partner with us in this resilience development initiative. As I have stated earlier, it was a challenge to find an education or literacy partner—one of the bewilderingly challenging building blocks.
In a country where literacy levels are abysmal and in Balochistan practically non-existent, one would imagine the funds and partners would be aplenty, but it is quite the contrary. I tried first with the education ministry in Balochistan in Quetta, then JICA, which backstops many alternative literacy programs, and then the Balochistan Education Foundation, which was funded by the World Bank for 10 years and now was meant to stand on its own feet. Their primary mandate is primary education, and I thought that is exactly what these villagers require! But alas, there is a massive gap between mandates and the capacity to deliver.
We have many buildings full of education bureaucrats—even teachers—but their impact, visibility, presence, and outputs are almost invisible in Balochistan. And that is the bottom-line truth. From the crisis of absentee teachers, unqualified teachers, and the lack of school facilities to the dropout rate of children after class 5 or the cultural barriers preventing girls from continuing school after 5th grade, and the distances between homes and schools in Balochistan, the crisis is beyond acute. But above all, I have seen that the value of education has not taken root in too many parts of Balochistan. Social mobilisation is critically needed here at a mass level.
UNICEF took me as a motivational speaker to various community gatherings where parents were not willing to let their girls study beyond 5th grade. Many hours later, after discussing why and how to overcome these practices, I managed to get a commitment from the elders that they would allow their girls to go to 6th grade.
Coming back to our focused villages: each one of the three villages gave land to build a school for the collective good of the community. This was not easy; giving up a precious asset for education took some convincing, but if they wanted a school or literacy centre, they also needed to contribute. Thus far, UNICEF has built one permanent school in Hindu Ghot and is mulling over building schools in Allahabad and Arbab Malla. Over 100 children await their decision.
In Hindu Ghot, a male teacher is dedicated to going to the village school. Most recently, I was asked by parents to send a female teacher instead. The schooling is mixed because it is a literacy centre, and as time passes and social issues creep up, the community will be more comfortable with a female instructor. To keep children in school, it is important these conditions are addressed. Moreover, the other building blocks toward resilience require a female teacher to be present to tackle many gender-specific issues.
The challenges of getting a woman to teach in literacy centres are enormous. First, there are practically no female teachers available. In a landscape of non-literates, who will go to a remote village and teach? Existing education models by development organisations assume there is at least one or two semi-literate persons who can be trained into teachers. Here, in these villages, there is none.
Having discussed this with education sector professionals, I understand the World Bank is planning a rural education sector support program with private organisations willing to educate in the most remote areas. The Bank would provide a pipeline of teachers to feed these rural centres until locals have built a reservoir of educated citizens who could possibly become teachers. I hope this operationalises, and I can see its benefits in my villages in Jaffarabad.
Coming to the third building block in permanent resilience: developing skills that address multiple gaps simultaneously.
During the relief phase, I had bought thousands of pro-poor, reusable, biodegradable sanitary pads for girls and women. I had mentally marked this product as the first income-generating skill in any community initiative I design in the future. Mind-boggling as it sounds, there are no pro-poor sanitary products in the market in Jaffarabad (probably nowhere else either). The girls and women use dirty pieces of rags, which further diseases and complicate health challenges. This one single product would transform and address multiple disabilities and challenges immediately. Transformative. Resilience rooted.
In this building block, I have to thank the National Bank of Pakistan (Mr. Rehmat Hasnie), who has given seed money and funding to set up skills centres in six of the villages. This single initiative will address the health and hygiene challenges all the girls and women face. I would not be exaggerating if I said the lack of hygiene is one of the largest contributing factors to the perpetual health issues girls and women face in Pakistan.
To address unhealthy personal hygiene practices also required building blocks. There was no point in giving them "awareness sessions" without a clean home, a bathroom, and clean water. Once this was provided, it made sense to introduce them to practices and products to strengthen their resilience against hygiene-related diseases. Building blocks. Too often, we have seen the cart before the horse approach. The community organisations and schools would also need to integrate these topics, emphasising the importance of hygiene and teaching them how to be clean. Messaging and learning from multiple platforms. We can now, at this point, expect hygiene practices to take root because citizens had a home, a bathroom, sewerage systems, and clean water to operationalise these practices. It now required learning, monitoring, and constant reminders for behaviours to change effectively.
Another partner in this journey is Samina, from whom I had bought the pro-poor sanitary products during the relief phase. She was a master trainer with SRSO, and now SPO has hired her with the seed funds from the NBP to train the women in the skills centres. I am grateful SPO has continued to remain a partner in this phase of permanent resilience development.
SPO, UNICEF, and SAHIL will hopefully integrate their existing health and hygiene awareness and training in the school, in the community organisations, and in the skills centres—pooling their expertise and human resources. Herein lies the institutional challenges many NGOs face: working together, coordinating, and cooperating without separate funding to do so.
Our work here will be done when 800 citizens in Jaffarabad no longer require funded assistance to access their basic human rights. Today, 85 have homes; now, the children and adults need to be educated, which opens up opportunities for them to explore what life offers us all. Finally, we must assist the adults in pivoting with life skills to empower themselves. The basics. It is critical that support organisations also exit from their role of giving. But it is equally important not to leave prematurely before they are able to stand on their feet. Too often, it is the in-between phase when projects discontinue.
From the very beginning, my conversations with all my partners have been that walking in this journey together will be a unique adventure. I have no financial gain in any of these initiatives and have requested them to also consider this partnership as their CSR, technical, and human resources contribution for the greater good. Permanent resilience. A model of how it should be done. Please do not leave the work incomplete—there is no halfway to resilience. Build back better—permanently.