By our correspondent
KARACHI: A four-and-a-half-year project worth A$3.2 million was launched in Karachi on Wednesday to help farming communities in Sindh adapt their livelihoods to growing climate challenges, including floods, rising temperatures and increasing soil salinity.
The Climate Adaptive Livelihoods in Sindh (CALS) project is funded by the Australian government through the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR). Mehran University of Engineering and Technology (MUET) organised a stakeholder inception workshop to mark its launch.
The project will work with farming communities in Sanghar and Sujawal districts, where changing weather patterns, heavier monsoon rains, rising temperatures and spreading salinity have placed increasing pressure on agricultural activities and rural livelihoods.
The initiative followed years of consultations and research with local communities. Community engagement began in 2023 and built on recommendations from several earlier projects. CALS was first unveiled at Pakistan Water Week in Islamabad on November 4.
Associate Professor Hemant Ojha, project leader from the Australian National University (ANU), presented an overview of the initiative. He said consultations across Sanghar, Sujawal, Karachi and Islamabad had raised several questions about the challenges facing rural communities.
Ojha said CALS was designed as a collaborative response to those concerns. He explained that the project would follow a locally led approach based on repeated cycles of assessing evidence, planning, taking action and reviewing progress with communities.
Dr Neil Lazarow, ACIAR’s research programme manager for water, said water security was fundamental to a sustainable agricultural sector in Pakistan. He highlighted the project’s potential to strengthen the links between water security and the livelihoods of rural communities. Emeritus Professor Bakhshal Lashari, national project coordinator at MUET, welcomed community representatives from Sanghar and Sujawal, academics and international delegates.
