ISLAMABAD: The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) has launched ‘GHAR (Green Housing Affordable Resilient), an initiative aimed at enhancing the technical capacity of government institutions and renowned academia to design, construct, and manage climate-resilient housing.

UNOPS Pakistan, in partnership with the provincial governments of Sindh, Punjab, and Khyber Pakhtunkhawa (KP), would carry out this initiative through research and development, interactive dialogue between institutes and academia, training, and communication on passive techniques for improving building performance.

There are three components to UNOPS Pakistan’s work on climate-resilient housing: communication, training, and demonstration strategies.

All these components are required to achieve progress in the implementation of green building codes for climate-resilient, sustainable, and inclusive housing, UNOPS announced on Wednesday.

Pakistan has been experiencing rapid urbanisation and growth in construction, the vast majority of which is housing. The population living in urban areas has increased from over 37 percent in 2020 to 60 percent in 2050 and will also increase in absolute terms as the national population grows from 225 million in 2021 to a projected 310 million in 2050.

The efforts to bring in all stakeholders, including academia, government, and professionals, highlighted UNOPS as a technical leader in green and resilient housing initiatives.

Through these project interventions of community awareness sessions, training unskilled masons, and plenary discussion with professionals and academia, the need for joint collaboration among all stakeholders in incorporating green and climate change adaptation techniques into the curricula and institution regulations was promoted.

Under GHAR, UNOPS held over 8 seminars in engineering universities in Islamabad, Sindh, Punjab, and KP to inform 1,086 students and over 556 professionals from different institutes about green infrastructure.

Special training sessions for over 190 government officials of the planning and development department and urban planning units of Sindh, Punjab, and KP were also conducted.

As part of the initiative, UNOPS also trained over 100 semi-skilled masons in Sindh on the importance of climate-resilient housing in the aftermath of devastating floods in 2022. The training focuses on climate-resilient building methods with practical exercises about site selection, building layouts, quality checks, and design.

UNOPS Country Manager for Pakistan, Jennifer Ankhrom Khan, stated that guidance in ‘Green Building Codes’ is helpful for engineers, architects, and quantity surveyors but is more effective when communicated through training on how to apply green building principles in design and construction exercises and examples.

UNOPS, with its internal funding, is supporting climate-resilient housing in Sindh, where it leads the Sindh People’s Housing for Flood Affectees’ (SPHF) technical working group on resilient housing.

The UN agency is also providing technical expertise on climate change adaptation in the built environment.

UNOPS has conducted an assessment analysing Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) in Sindh’s Post-Flood Housing Reconstruction with a special focus on brick supply chain challenges and social cohesion and presented its findings to planning and development department officials of all the provincial governments.

Published in Dawn, December 28th, 2023