essential services such as sanitation, safe water and solid waste collection and disposal.
These infrastructure projects were for Dera Ismail Khan, Malakand and Peshawar. Three years after signing the agreement, the project has not achieved any significant results. Only a few small projects in the city of Peshawar have been completed.
Furthermore, only $4.9 million (or 5.8 percent) of the grant agreement had been disbursed. This was caused because the mission did not actively engage and work closely with the grantee, which lacks significant capacity. No activities were planned for two of the three provincial divisions.
The initial and amended activity agreements state the geographic focus of the programme will be in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Divisions of Dera Ismail Khan, Malakand and Peshawar. However, no activities have been started or planned in either Malakand or Dera Ismail Khan division. Mission officials stated that then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton directed USAID/Pakistan to focus activities in the city of Peshawar.
However, no supporting documentation was provided to support this statement. The mission did not have an agreement with the government of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa for earmarked funds.
USAID/Pakistan received $65 million in congressionally earmarked funds, designated for drinking water projects. The mission subsequently decided to use $50 million of those earmarked funds exclusively for the city of Peshawar.
However, the mission sub-obligated these funds along with municipal services programme funds, leading to confusion among mission personnel as to the geographic focus of the programme.
Furthermore, the mission does not have an agreement that details the original earmarked purpose. The mission did not conduct an environmental examination promptly.
While the mission was operating under an approved umbrella ‘Initial Environmental Examination’, the project identified the need to rehabilitate two wastewater treatment plants in Peshawar. However, the required environmental examination was not completed for this specific activity for over a year, at which time it was determined that a more extensive environmental assessment had to be conducted. This was because the mission relied on the umbrella examination and was not actively engaged in the project. As a result, work on the wastewater treatment plants stopped. The Urban Policy Unit was not functioning as planned.
As part of the programme’s activities, USAID/Pakistan agreed to fund the establishment of the Urban Policy Unit, whose purpose is to improve urban governance and development. However, 6 months past the completion date, the unit is still not fully staffed or functioning. The mission did not have a gender analysis process in place.
A key component of gender analysis is the examination of whether females and males have access to the same public services. The mission approved the construction of public toilets at two separate locations in Peshawar. At each location, this will include 6 toilets for women, 24 (or four times as many) for men, and one toilet for the disabled. The mission could not provide any supporting analysis in determining how this construction allocation decision was reached. To address these issues, we recommend that USAID/Pakistan to make a written justification on whether to continue the programme or put the remaining $79 million to better use.