Resonance is developing innovative partnerships with the private sector in Pakistan to improve livelihoods among conflict-affected people in the country’s most vulnerable areas.
Using its proprietary Sustainable Transparent Effective Partnerships (STEP) methodology Resonance fosters public-private cooperation to enable conflict victims in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa to resume a normal life.
Resonance’s strategic partnerships with private sector actors are designed to leverage private sector resources for project activities to support job training as well as education, medical, social, and other needs of conflict victims seeking to reintegrate into the Pakistani economy and society.
Through partnership training activities tailored for Conflict Victims Support Program (CVSP) project staff and implementing partners, Resonance has built the project’s capacity to launch development of key partnership opportunities reflecting the needs and priorities of the project’s target institutions and stakeholders, ranging from medical support to income generation.
Says Alberto Abadia, Resonance’s Partnership Advisor for CVSP, “Pakistan has plenty of private sector actors who are aware of the challenge of working in conflict-affected areas and understand the clear economic and social benefits of working on livelihoods initiatives such as CVSP.”
CVSP partnerships contribute to the larger US government effort to reduce key Sources of Instability (SOI) by engaging and supporting at-risk populations in the FATA/KP, building trust between citizens and their government, and encouraging local populations to take an active role in their development.
To date, Resonance has fostered the development and design of over 10 public-private partnerships in a broad range of industries, including pharmaceutical, telemedicine, skills training, microfinance, medical, and finance.
Most recently a group of almost 20 beneficiaries had their first day of training at the ZXMCO motorcycle factory in Lahore. The partnership is conceived as a pilot, designed for a larger endeavor in the future and contributing to the CVSP project objective of creating new jobs for people living in conflict-affected areas.
At this phase in the partnership, ZXMCO will engage these beneficiaries in a mechanical course over the course of two months. Following this, the trainees will have the opportunity to set up outlets for repair or sales of ZXMCO products.
