Saibaan Development Organization

Saibaan was founded in May 1999 with the aim of promoting the general development of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) Province (then still known as North Western Frontier Province). On 5 June 2000 Saibaan was registered in Peshawar as a non-governmental organization (NGO) under Societies Registration Act of 1860. In 2010 the Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy (PCP) carried out an evaluation of Saibaan’s management, financial management and program implementation, and certified the organization as a non-profit NGO with a good result (84.9 out of 100 points). Saibaan has adopted several policies on professionalizing its own work processes, including a gender policy on supporting projects focusing on women.

Saibaan’s stated objective is integrated rural development by means of promoting women, livelihoods, income generation, health education, informal education, water supply and sewage disposal, and infrastructure measures. Cross-cutting issues are civic participation, gender equality, environmental protection and disaster risk reduction. The organization’s goal in adopting this approach is to promote gender equality and sustainable changes to social structures and attitudes.

Saibaan established the Child Rights Advocacy Network (CRAN) in Mansehra District, which comprises organizations active in the field of children’s rights. In addition, Saibaan is a member of the Pakistan Environment Club, the Human Resource Development Network (HRDN) and the Trust of Volunteer Organizations in Pakistan. Saibaan is also a member of the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP), an international organization that has adopted a voluntary commitment on accountability and quality management in implementing humanitarian interventions.

Since 2005, Saibaan has implemented more than 30 projects and has been supported by various international donor organizations, including Oxfam Novib, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Care International Pakistan, Action Aid Pakistan, Save the Children Sweden (SCS), the SDC, Concern Worldwide, the ILO, IOM, UNICEF, UN World Food Program (WFP), UNFPA, UNDP Pakistan, UN Habitat and Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC). The table in the Annex provides an overview of a selection of Saibaan’s completed and ongoing projects. Oxfam Germany and KNH are the organization’s biggest funding donors. In 2016, Saibaan entered into partnership with Action Aid Pakistan for women economic empowerment project in district Mansehra and UNESCO for improvement of girls’ education program in AJK

Number of staff, expertise

Saibaan is managed by an Executive Director and a Board that meets every three months. Two of the nine Board members are women; one of them is the vice-chairwomen. Saibaan currently has 45 staff members who are involved in various projects. In addition, external staff with the required expertise is hired depending on the specific project, for instance facilitators, capacity-building specialists or organizational development experts. Saibaan also continuously strives for skills development within its organization and has arranged a comprehensive gender-based violence training (carried out by Rozan and funded by Oxfam Germany) for the majority of its staff in November/December 2014. In the BMZ project for Mother-and-Child-Health (MAMTAA), Saibaan staff co-moderated trainings on family planning delivered by experts, and are now in the position to deliver these trainings themselves.

Activities, sphere of action (sect oral, regional)

In the aftermath of the earthquake Saibaan, with support from CRS, IOM and WFP, carried out needs analyses in the district and distributed relief supplies in the villages. As a result the organization came into very direct contact with the problems and needs of the rural population and, with support from Oxfam Novib, decided to continue cooperating with the local population on reconstruction and rural development following the initial phase of providing acute emergency relief. Saibaan orients all its activities to the needs of the population and regards itself as a mediator between the village communities and state actors, who for their part are called on to provide basic services in the fields of education, health and infrastructure. In conformity with  Saibaan’s strategic plan for the period 2012 to 2016, the focus of the current projects are: securing sustainable livelihoods, mother-and-child health, securing women’s and children’s rights, basic education and participation of women, advocacy and lobby with the government to meet its obligation to provide basic social services.

Geographically speaking, Saibaan continues to focus on Mansehra District in KPK Province, and it is primarily active in remote villages that have poor access to public infrastructure. In order to gradually expand the organization’s sphere of action, Saibaan has, in recent years increasingly been carrying out projects in district Chitral,of Abbottabad, Battagram, Haripur and Kohistan in KPK Province, as well as in Muzaffarabad, Hattian and Neelum Districts in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). Currently, Saibaan works in 37 union councils.

Vision
A prosperous and non-discriminatory society based on social justice, equity and equality

Mission
Bring about positive changes in the lives of local communities by enhancing their coping mechanisms, advocating for policy and institutional changes to transform their lives through equitable and sustainable use of resources without any discrimination against social origin, sex, race, caste and religion.

Objective
Deprived communities, mainly vulnerable, women, minorities and ultra-poor in the selected marginalized areas are organized and empowered
Access to fundamental rights of marginalized communities, particularly women and minorities improved
Economic status of the marginalized entrepreneurs, especially women, differently-able and ultra-poor sustainably improved
Poor women and men have better access to financial resources to enhance their income
Livelihoods of the marginalized, especially women and ultra poor improved through sustainable livelihood intervention
Poor communities especially women, children and minorities have access to basic community infrastructure
Health and hygiene conditions of the community improved, particularly that of women, children and minorities
Access and use of clean water and sanitation facilities improved in the target area, knowledge of communities enhanced on WASH
Resilience of vulnerable communities, local government and community based organizations to disaster risks enhanced
Capacities of institutions and marginalized groups particularly women, ultra poor and minorities enhanced to contribute to socio-economic and political development.
Saibaan’s capacity enhanced to expand its rights based community development programmes to benefit the poor and marginalized communities.