Present Projects

SDA is currently working on the following projects:

Transversal Package Project (TPP)

Donor Agency: Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) & Swiss Development Corporation (SDC) through University of Bern, Switzerland under National Center of Competence in Research, Switzerland.
Awarded in: July 01, 2006 – June 2009
Total Duration: Three Years

SDA is the partner of NCCR North-South and University of Berne, Switzerland for its Transversal Package Project (TPP). The theme of the research is "Impact of Developmental Interventions on natural resources in Poverty-Environment Nexus". This is a research-based project. National Science Foundation (NSF) and Swiss Development Corporation (SDC) have jointly funded this project while SDA is an implementing agency.

Work Package – 2 (WP – 2) of NCCR North-South

Donor Agency: University of Zurich, Switzerland under National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR), Switzerland
Awarded in: September 01, 2006 – June 30th, 2009
Total Duration: Three Years (around)

Implementing Partner of Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), Islamabad in a research based initiative in which, One student of Doctorate and one student for Masters will be conducting their research under the agreed topic with Development Studies Group of Zurich and Pakistan. SDA will be overseeing logistics and management issues during the course of research time. The SDA will be contributing through facilitation.

Partnership Action Mitigation Syndromes (PAMS)

Donor Agency: University of Zurich, Switzerland through head of Work Package under National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR), Switzerland
Awarded in: August, 2007 – July, 2008
Total Duration: One Year

PAMS project aims to identify reasons of communication gap among stakeholders of sustainable forest management. Identification of reasons may help us in exploring the way forward. It was realized that sustainable forest management could not be implemented in Pakistan with its true spirit. An observation and one of the major findings of a Ph. D research conducted by Dr. Babar Shehbaz, Assistant Professor, University of Agriculture, Faisalabad, that there is a considerable communication gap between stakeholders for sustainable forest management in Pakistan context.

SDA submitted a small project to head of Work Package under National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR), Switzerland to initiate a process for minimization of this communication gap. Initially, Lower Dir district was proposed to initiate PAMS activities. Later on due to some security reasons, Haripur district was selected for these activities with prior consent of the donor institute.

South Asian Institute of Development (SAID)

Donor Agency: Action Aid South Asia
Awarded in: July, 2007
Total Duration: One Year but extendable

South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAAR) is working quite long to strengthen and build strong linkages among member countries but unfortunately we are unable to find the success stories to replicate. The idea behind said is to have a rigorous brainstorming to explore the need of an institute where development practioners and fresh students are trained for sustainable development. After completing their formal education, they should be able to understand issues of sustainable development and at the same time they should be prepare to face the challenges of sustainable development.

Completed Projects

Household Benchmark Food Security and Crop Maximization Survey

Donor Agency: World Food Programme (WFP) of United Nations
Awarded in: January, 2008 – March, 2008
Total Duration: Three months

This survey aims to establish a benchmark before implementation of Crop Maximization and Productivity Enhancement (CMP – II) of small scale farmers in Pakistan. The said project is funded by Government of Pakistan and implemented by Ministry for Food, Agriculture and Livestock (MINFAL). This survey has been commissioned to SDA through World Food Programme of United Nations. Although this survey is being conducted across the country but SDA is engaged only in province of Balochistan and Punjab (North) i.e. district Gujeranwala, Sialkot and Sargodha.

An Initiative for Cotton Procurement, Bahawalpur – Pakistan

Donor Agency: IKEA Trading HK Ltd. Pakistan liaison office
Awarded in: November 2006 to January, 2007

SDA was the lead implementing agent for "An Initiative for Cotton Procurement" to provide better access of market to the cotton farmers. This initiative was funded by IKEA and launched in Bahawalpur, where IKEA has already funded a project, “Pakistan Sustainable Cotton Initiative (PSCI) which is being implemented by WWF – Pakistan.

Environmental Assessment Study of Sustainable Livelihood Recovery Project Mansehra - Pakistan

Donor Agency: World Vision Pakistanl (WVP), Islamabad – Pakistan
Awarded in: April, 2007
Total Duration: Two-months

SDA conducted an environmental assessment study of Sustainable Livelihood Recovery Project of World Vision International (WVI), in district Mansehra. This study will serve to define the project’s environmental dimensions and to identify measures needed to prevent the project from causing ecological damage and generating social costs. The project was launched in April 2007.

An Analysis of Household Food Security situation of Earthquake affected areas of Pakistan

Donor Agency: World Food Programme (WFP) of United Nations
Awarded in: February 2007
Total Duration: Three months

A study in collaboration with UN’s World Food Program and Food and Agriculture Organization to assess the food security situation in earth quake affected areas of Pakistan (seven districts). The ultimate objective of the study is to measure the present house hold status of food security. It was launched in February 2007 by SDA.

GPS coordinates and village profiling survey to identify food insecure villages of selected districts of Balochistan province.

Donor Agency: UN’s World Food Programme (WFP)
Awarded in: September, 2007 – December, 2007
Total Duration: Three months

It was a survey conducted by SDA’s expert team for World Food Programme (WFP) of United Nations. The main goal of this survey was to collect information from twelve selected districts of Balochistan province to identify food insecure villages within these districts. This survey was launched in September, 2008. It includes district Kharan, Zhob, Ziarat, Sibi, Mastung, Panjgur, Awaran, Turbat, Jaffarabad, Jhal Magsi, Naseerabad and Musa Khel .

Expertise

SDA has a number of experts for its different priorities like Water, Environment, Forests, Rural Development, Natural Resource Management, Enterprise Development, Sustainable Agriculture, Social Justice, Decentralization, Globalization and Livelihood. In addition to this, we do have a survey department, and team is lead by a survey coordinator, a highly professional trained person. Our survey department has conducted several surveys. Some of the surveys, studies and projects are given as under.