The impact of conflict and political fragility is uneven in any country context, and in the case of Pakistan this is especially notable, given the size of the country’s population and its political and geographic diversity. In this paper, an effort has been made to look at the impact of conflict and floods on livelihoods strategies of the people of the Malakand division in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa with emphasis on Swat and Lower Dir. The conflict and floods have severely damaged economic and physical infrastructures and, as a result, people have suffered from reduced livelihoods and access to basic services. The already precarious situation worsened when local inhabitants of Malakand division left their houses in anticipation of the Pakistani Army’s military action against Taliban in 2009 (Shahbaz et al. 2012). In this backdrop, an evaluation of the institutional landscape for reconstruction process and role of various actors involved in it has been carried out. The paper provides an insight on donors’ support to secure livelihoods in Malakand division and role of local agencies as representatives of local communities. By identifying gaps, it makes recommendations to avoid any lapse in the future and how a chaos can be averted (Ibid.). 

Reference:

Shahbaz, B. Shah, Q.A. Suleri, A.Q. Commins, S. and Malik, A.A. 2012, ‘Livelihoods, Basic Services and

Social Protection in North-Western Pakistan’, Working Paper 5, August,  Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium, UK,

<http://www.odi.org.uk/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/7782.pdf> accessed 27 Nov. 2012.