Country background
- Following the third South Asia Conference on Sanitation (SacoSan III), Pakistan held a national conference (Pakistan Conference on Sanitation) in May 2009. There, the government committed to increasing sanitation coverage to 100% by 2015.
Policies and strategies
- The Government of Pakistan has recently reiterated the priorities for water supply and sanitation in the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (PRSP) - II for 2008-2011 (draft summary), and set the target to serve safe water supply to an additional 27 million persons by 2010.
- The National Water Policy and the Pakistan Water Sector Strategy (Volumes 1-5) date from 2004 and 2002 respectively. A new National Drinking Water Policy was approved in 2009 aiming to provide 100% safe drinking water to the entire population of Pakistan by 2025. The policy recognizes access to safe drinking water as a basic human right of every citizen and gives water allocation for drinking purposes priority over other uses.
- The National Sanitation Policy (NSP) of 2006 seeks to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target on sanitation by 2015 and beyond to provide access to improved sanitation for all Pakistanis by 2025. Its salient features include Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) in small settlements up to 1,000 persons, and component sharing of sanitation infrastructure between the government and communities in larger settlements. Local governments and development authorities are required to formulate their strategies, plans, programmes and projects to implement the NSP. Rolling out the policy, the National Sanitation Action Plan (2010-15) serves as a roadmap for national and sub-national governments to achieve the MDG target.
- The Clean Drinking Water for All (CDWA) programme is being implemented as part of the Medium Term Development Framework (MTDF) 2005-2010. The goal of the CDWA is to provide around 7,000 water purification plants, one in each Union Council across the country.
Institutions
- The Local Government Ordinance (LGO) 2001 brought major structural changes in shifting responsibilities for (municipal) service delivery to District Governments, Tehsils (towns) and Union Councils, while policies are still developed at national level.
- The Ministry of Water and Power through its Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) is responsible for water resource development and management. For urban services, Water and Sanitation Agencies (WASAs) are working as autonomous agencies of local governments in the main cities; however there is no independent regulatory agency in the sector.
- The Ministry of Environment is the focal point for the national policies, plans and programmes regarding environmental planning, including urban water supply, sewerage and drainage.
- At national and sub-national level, the Ministry of Health is tasked for health policy development and has the mandate for health and hygiene education.
- Provincial Public Health Engineering Departments (PHEDs) design and implement development schemes for drinking water and sewerage systems in rural and urban areas down to Union level.
- Coordination: The Federal Government notified a National Drinking Water and Sanitation Policy Implementation Committee (NDW&S PIC) in December 2009 for the implementation of both policies. UNICEF supported WES Group is a knowledge management network for mainly government and development partners.
