Pakistan - Community Support Program (CASA-1000) (English)

Ratings for the Community Support Project (CASA 1000) for Pakistan were as follows: outcomes were moderately satisfactory, the Bank performance was moderately satisfactory, and the monitoring and evaluation quality was substantial. Some lessons learned included: establishing an effective and inclusive GRM was a major test for the project, because of the weaker state capacity and less empowered citizens. PCSP established and implemented a robust GRM not just for project specific feedback and complaints, but also to coordinate with the GRM of the CASA-1000 project. The PMU's collaboration with the CASA 1000 Project's GRM at the National Transmission and Dispatch Company (NTDC) played a pivotal role in resolving complaints and issues related to CASA 1000 activities, and required coordination between federal, provincial, and local government entities to an extent that is new to the region. The toll-free Interactive voice response (IVR) system developed by the GRM was also regularly survey community members and gather feedback. Finally, signage at subprojects clearly identified the Government of KP. The Project was able to strengthen women's inclusion in development activities, a concept that baseline surveys showed was traditionally unaccepted in the tribal and patriarchal culture of the project villages. The PMU engaged women through dedicated Women Sub-Committees (WSCs) to not only to fulfill the minimum requirements for women's inclusion in the development planning process, but to go beyond the Results Framework to conduct women-centric activities. To avoid tokenization of WSCs, it was made mandatory that members of CDC must receive two-thirds majority endorsement from WSC members for approval of resolution and endorsement from 20% women in the WSC for release of installments. The project also engaged the Youth Development Committees (YDCs) to provide support to CDCs in sub-project implementation using digital skills. These included youth support in electronically disseminating project information, assisting the CDCs in filling out subproject documentation, and conducting audits. These trained youth will be an asset to the communities in achieving development priorities in the future. However, as the endline survey results suggested, women found it difficult to get involved in the implementation of schemes after their approval.