Karachi, February 20, 2019 (PPI-OT): The Sindh Government will start implementing its project to do urban forestry in the province within a month as Karachi is going to be the first city to undergo the massive plantation drive. Sindh Minister for Forests and Wildlife disclosed this information while speaking as the chief guest at a dialogue on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) organized at Karachi Gymkhana by National Forum for Environment and Health (NFEH).The Forests minister urged the concerned philanthropists, non-governmental organizations, and corporate sector to come forward and actively participate in the upcoming urban forestry drive of the provincial government.
He said that provincial Forests Department had duly identified the sites in Karachi where tree plantation would be carried out to promote urban forestry as places along the banks of Malir, Lyari Rivers and other major storm water drains would be the most suitable places to do such an activity. He said that plants and trees of native species would be mostly used to undertake this forestry campaign.
He said that urban forestry campaign had been designed on the directives of Chairman of Pakistan Peoples Party Bilawal Bhutto Zardari for the sake of conserving environment of main cities of the province and to reverse the harmful effects of pollution. The provincial minister said that in the previous week, he had convened the meeting of the concerned stakeholders including Local Government minister and Mayor Karachi to consult them on the upcoming urban forestry initiative in the city.
He said that gradually the urban forestry program would be expanded to other divisional headquarters of the province also. He said the Forest Department had also been conducting the campaign to get vacated forest land in the province under illegal occupation. Nasir Hussain Shah, who also holds the portfolio of Sindh Works and Services Department, said that he had ordered officials concerned that the tree plantation should become a compulsory component of the development schemes regarding building of new roads in the entire province. Also speaking on the occasion, Shazina Masud, CEO of Aman Health Care Services, said the Aman Foundation had started its work in 2008 as it had excelled in the fields of emergency medical services and community mobilization for family planning.
She said the Aman Foundation would expand its fleet of the modern ambulances in Karachi from 60 to 200 in collaboration with the Sindh Government. She said the Aman Foundation in partnership with the Sindh government had already been operating Sindh Peoples Ambulance Service for the districts of Thatta and Sujawal.
She said that community mobilization for promoting the concept of family planning was being done to especially target low-income population that otherwise could not be reached out for disseminating them the information about this important social campaign. Mohammad Shoaib, President of Al-Shifa Trust, said that although the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan in 2013 had issued voluntary guidelines for the corporate entities to do CSR-related work but an organization like the PIA had fully adopted them.
He said despite that the PIA had been facing serious financial crisis in the present times but still the national flag carrier had been sticking to all its CSR-related initiatives it had ever launched during the past when it was a prosperous airline. Malik Ahmed Jalal, former CEO of Aman Foundation, said that non-governmental organizations, charities, and private sector on its own could not overcome massive social problems like hunger, poverty, and population growth as ultimately it was the domain of the government to effectively resolve these issues.
He said that charitable organizations should provide health, education, shelter, skill development, food, water, and similar other social services with a uniform standard so that the same services could be replicated for people of the affluent class also. “Like for instance, the skill development program of Aman Foundation is of the same standard for all the enrolled students irrespective of their social status,” Mirza Ishtiaq Baig, President of Make A Wish Foundation, said that SECP guidelines for CSR should make it binding upon the companies to spend minimum one or two per cent of their annual profits for doing corporate philanthropy.
He said that similar legislation in India had been highly helpful in furthering the charitable work in the neighbouring country of Pakistan. He said that Pakistan ranked among the top countries of the world in terms of massive show of generosity by its people to do individual spending for charitable causes. He said that Pakistan would also be among the top-ranking countries of the world doing organizational spending for charitable causes if the required legislation would be enacted that would reserve a fixed percentage of the annual profits of every company for doing CSR-related work.
Syed Fakhar Ahmed, Chief Communication and Marketing Officer of K-Electric, said that Pakistanis should be proud of its noble people like late Abdul Sattar Edhi who had dedicated his entire life for doing the charitable work. He said that Edhi Foundation had been running the world’s biggest services of emergency ambulance service and shelter facility for destitute woman and children. He said that community welfare projects designed and funded by any of the well-reputed international donor agencies were implemented as minimum 28 per cent of the funds allocated for such schemes were consumed only on management of these social uplift programmes.
He said that whereas a charitable organization like the Edhi Foundation had been doing its welfare initiatives only after spending maximum two to three per cent of the funds available to it purely for management of these charity programmes. “In rest of the world nobody could do such large welfare initiatives with so much limited allocation for management of these charity programs,” he said.
NFEH President Naeem Qureshi said that a CSR Club had been established to provide a common platform for different like-minded charitable and corporate organizations to combine their efforts, resources, and funding to widen the scope of different welfare projects for uplift of the downtrodden masses. He said the NFEH would fully support the plan of Sindh government to promote urban forestry in the province as in this regard a meeting would soon be convened of the concerned NGOs, which could help the government in its plantation programme. Anis Younus President CSR Club of Pakistan, Pervez Madraswala, Seema Taher Khan, Col R. Rizwan Ahmed, Saleem Mughal, Engr. Nadeem Ashraf, Hussain Thebo and others also spoke on the occasion.
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