Karachi: The Coca-Cola Company has partnered with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Pakistan for the “New World” program, focused towards community water stewardship and adaptation to climate change. Under this Rs. 16 million program, Coca-Cola will partner with reputed NGO, Mountain & Glacier Protection Organization (MGPO), for integrated water resource management, safe drinking water and sanitation services in Gilgit-Baltistan.
Targeted outputs of this project include irrigation of 355 hectares of land, installation of 17 water points for sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation services for 4,000 people. This project will also help empower 1,400 women and 500 youth with opportunity to earn livelihood through completion of this project.
This project is in line with the Company’s CSR strategy, allowing for expansion of the global and local outreach in regard to water stewardship, targeting 100% water replenishment goal by 2020. The target area of this project is Siksa Village, whose livelihood is solely dependent on agriculture and tourism. The local community is at a high risk because of the remote location and due to harsh weather conditions. The on-site work will start in April 2016, which will include construction of pipe irrigation system and water beds.
Acknowledging this partnership, Rizwan U. Khan, General Manager, Coca-Cola, Pakistan and Afghanistan said “I am pleased to welcome MGPO in partnering with Coca-Cola Pakistan to not just provide water management services in Siksa Village, but to develop a community participation based infrastructure that will continue to provide life-changing socio-economic uplift to the beneficiaries and local communities. The idea is to create shared value through sustainable development.”
Further endorsing the partnership, Usman Manzoor who is Programme Analyst at UNDP Country Office, Pakistan said, “The ’New World’ initiative, provides a great opportunity to the civil society organizations across Pakistan to address their community issues under the given thematic areas. We aim to promote innovative solutions to the existing issues and are quite hopeful that our intervention through MGPO will bring about a positive change in the lives of the communities”.
Under ‘New World’ Partnership, Coca-Cola & UNDP have also rehabilitated over 100 schools in Islamabad & Rawalpindi, by providing separate washrooms for females and significantly improving the conditions of playgrounds in these schools. An estimated 20,000 females students and 5000 existing students will continue to benefit from this program.
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