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Mercy Corps has been working in Pakistan since 1986, when we began providing humanitarian assistance to Afghan refugees in Balochistan province. Since then, our activities have expanded throughout the country. Today, we're responding to the worst monsoon-related floods in memory, improving access to health care, and helping dairy farmers increase their incomes.
Flood Response
Mercy Corps supplied clean water, emergency supplies and medical care to people in two hard-hit areas: the Swat Valley in the north, where millions of people were resettling after being displaced by last year’s fighting between the Pakistan Army and the Taliban, and Sindh Province in the south.
We responded to the public health needs of affected families. In the SWAT Valley, Mercy Corps provided the Department of Health with medicines to ensure sufficient supply to health facilities in flood-affected areas. In Sindh Province, where 7.3 million people were affected by the floods, Mercy Corps distributed hygiene kits and conducted hygiene promotion sessions.
We also conducted water and sanitation initiatives in internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Balochistan, where more than 60,000 people were living in camps, public buildings and spontaneous sites. We installed 300 pit latrines and 26 bathrooms. Distribution of hygiene kits between Sindh and Balochistan benefited 56,730 people.
Mobile health units established almost immediately after the floods treated 12,230 patients. Mercy Corps staff members worked closely with the World Health Organisation to administer these mobile health facilities. In Gotki district, Mercy Corps established two diarrhoea treatment centers that treated 700 patients – 40 percent of them children under five.
Mercy Corps is in the process of transitioning from immediate relief to helping communities recover. Our teams are continuing to fix water systems, rebuild health clinics and employ residents to rebuild roads, clear debris and repair irrigation channels and retaining walls. In the longer term, our recovery efforts will include working with farmers to restore their lands and supplying them with the seeds, livestock, tools and other farming inputs necessary to resume their livelihoods and avoid a food crisis.
Public Health Interventions
In Pakistan, Mercy Corps’ health programming focuses on primary health care interventions, with an emphasis on maternal, neonatal and child health (MNCH), reproductive health, nutrition and infectious diseases.
According to the World Health Organisation, Pakistan has the eighth-highest burden of tuberculosis infections in the world. Every year in Pakistan, approximately 300,000 people develop TB and 48,000 people die of the disease.
Mercy Corps is principal recipient of two grants from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria for TB control in Pakistan. Mercy Corps is also working to improve the quality of healthcare services for Afghan refugee and hosting populations, and is supporting Afghan refugee women to become Community Health Workers and Community Midwives.
During the 2009 internally displaced persons (IDP) crisis, Mercy Corps supported public health facilities and provided birthing facilities to displaced people. Mercy Corps works both directly and indirectly through our partners in the target districts.
Mercy Corps views public health as a foundation for long-term development, emphasizing cost-effective, sustainable and scalable approaches to building healthy and productive communities. As a result of Mercy Corps’ many projects in Pakistan, people there are healthier, with more opportunities to earn a living and support their families, while communities are becoming more resilient, productive and self-sufficient.
Increasing the Incomes of Dairy Farmers
Mercy Corps also works with dairy farmers in a programme that aims to increase the incomes of landless and small dairy farmers in remote areas of Sindh. Our project focuses on increasing livestock productivity and improving the economic performance of the dairy value chain for smallholder dairy farmers. It addresses needed improvements in livestock health and management and will enhance the performance of the local dairy industry. Mercy Corps established milk producer groups, set up collection and cold storage units and a retail outlet and provided business planning and skills development – in addition to creating sustainable market linkages between buyers and sellers. The programme primarily serves small landholding farmers and women.
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