Sarhad Provincial Conservation Strategy - IUCN

7
their role in development, combined with a large
number of new NGOs on women’s issues, has
heightened the prospects for integrating women into
the development process.
The transformation of women from objects of
reproduction to autonomous persons in their own
right will entail a fundamental change in perceptions
and attitudes, however. The role women play in this
process is critical. Although changes in the role of
women may be an evolutionary process, extensive
Government intervention is needed in making opportunities
available to women, such as employment,
skills development, health care, and, most important,
information to enhance participation in all spheres.
Women’s organizations need not only to spread
awareness about women’s rights but also to destroy
myths about women’s non-productivity and to ensure
a similar awareness about the essential role of
women in solving environment and development
problems.
7 . 6
P O V E R T Y A L L E V I A T I O N & P O P U L A T I O N
DISTRICT SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
S T R AT E G I E S
As noted earlier, the vast regional differences within
the NWFP result in very different sustainable development
needs. These differences are very clearly
spelled out in the SPCS public consultation reports
described already. Indeed, in some cases examples
of inter-regional rivalries were revealed.
The SPCS is intended to deal strategically with
province-wide issues of conservation of natural
resources, such as forests, agriculture, water, and
biodiversity. It is more difficult to provide suggestions
for all the individual district issues, such as localized
pollution abatement problems, contamination of surface
and groundwater, soil erosion, unemployment,
lack of clean drinking water, and the involvement
and networking of NGOs and community groups.
The emphasis and priorities on these issues have varied
from region to region and in many cases among
districts and communities. They have been evaluated
and reported here, and the Government will have to
respond as resources permit, or as additional
resources are mobilized, particularly through the
78 SARHAD PROVINCIAL CONSERVATION STRATEGY
SAP. But it could take time to deal with the long list of
actual problems.
However, many of the regional issues involve the
need for better coordination, proactive planning, and
improved integration of natural resources’ management
activities. In effect, what the participants in the
SPCS consultations suggested was a need for a district-level
conservation strategy or sustainable development
plan. To initiate this idea, it is appropriate to
develop district strategies on a pilot basis in four
diverse areas of the NWFP. The initial suggestions
are Chitral, Batagram, Peshawar, and D.I. Khan and
possibly FATA (e.g Kurram). Many other districts
already have development activities under way that
are similar to a conservation strategy.
In addition to the general benefits of experimenting
with a district strategy process, using a locally based
planning team to determine priorities, there is an
added advantage to this approach. By determining
local priorities during 1995-98, the district strategy
will complement the planning process for the Ninth
Five-Year Plan. This aids provincial Government planners
while at the same time making the Ninth Plan
more strategic and sensitive to local needs.
The mechanism to develop district conservation
strategies may vary from region to region, both to
respond to local needs, but also to test different
approaches. Basically the same interest-based ‘round
table’ approach described elsewhere would be proposed
to the prospective participants in the district
planning teams. Based on their response, a planning
process and work plan would be developed.
These are the generic elements of the planning
process. It is important to emphasize that a detailed
outline for the district plan would be locally designed.
The greater the participation at the early stages of
each process, the greater the likelihood of local ownership
of the results and successful implementation.
A district strategy must be much more than a technical
planning exercise undertaken by planners centrally.
Each will include:
■ a locally based planning team;
■ a round table of local people to oversee the work;
■ a broad spectrum of all legitimate interests on the
round table;
■ support for existing institutions to participate;