The National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF) on Wednesday successfully concluded its two-day third Accreditation Workshop intended to ensure capacity buildup of its fund implementing partners (FIPs) amid diversification of the Fund’s portfolio on accreditation criteria and project proposal development. The NDRMF third Accreditation Workshop was in time step as there was need to update its accreditation criteria to cater the Fund’s current mandate due to diversification of its portfolio and based on lesson learnt during execution of Phase- I and project grant financing. The workshop was organized on backdrop of initiation of phase -II of NDRMF funding, to help achieve an enhanced level of coordination, involvement and capacity building of the prospective FIPs for accreditation application, understanding of the fund’s proposal format and related documentation. Addressing the inaugural session, Chief Executive Officer (CEO), NDRMF, Bilal Anwar said the workshop was an exercise to calibrate ideas and thinking with the FIPs or partner organisation to fill the gaps. He said the repurposing and redefining goal of the NDRFM was driven by the challenges faced by the country in the realm of disaster risk reduction, climate change, disaster risk management and others. The achievements made by the Fund so far was being made in collaboration with the FIPs and it was important and required as structural work needed both physical work like building small dams, early warning systems, and address slow onset disasters like drought, malnutrition and food security, he added. “Climate change is bringing a new dimension of it and climate change is kind of a menace faced by the country that would become adverse in the future,” he said. In the past few months, he said the Fund did a stocktaking of the previous role of NDRMF and its overall performance which helped it come up with a few ticket items incorporated in its draft Business Policy being prepared. He provided a brief overview of the policy stating that disaster management was going to remain a major component of the disaster risk reduction work done by the fund which would make it more dependent on the expertise of the FIPs in this regard due to their assets and footprint extended to the remotest areas and communities of the country that were not accessible by the fund. “The philosophy of the NDRMF repurposing and redefining is that while it is strengthening and expanding itself in several areas and simultaneously it will be limiting itself in certain areas. We want to create a community of practitioners that is well equipped with developing trends and knowledge to tackle intricacies of managing climate-induced disasters and challenges,” he said. Climate Finance is a new area for Pakistan which is not new but rather late explored by the country and the FIPs should work on developing their capacities in gauging the The first day of the workshop focused on accreditation process and the second day provided insights to the participants on project proposal development. Accreditation Lead & DM Procurement, NDRMF, Amina Sadaf opened the second day proceedings with her opening remarks. She said that the workshop had been convened at the completion of the first batch of the fund’s projects which was successfully achieved. She invited the representatives of the Muslim Aid Pakistan, Islamic Relief Pakistan, and Agha Khan Foundation who had completed various projects in multifaceted domains of education, WASH (water, sanitation and Hygiene), livelihoods, climate change, food security, shelter, disaster risk management, and many others. At the conclusion of the workshop, CEO Bilal Anwar said the overwhelming participation of the partners which were beyond three dozen in number was encouraging. However, the community representatives’ messages displayed by the FIPs provided heartening and powerful messages that should be promoted further. The NDRMF was working on establishing its “Data Center” that would be a repository of data and information for all, he said, adding, “The NDMA also did the similar thing and built its National Emergency Operations Center (NEOC).” He added that the workshop served as a great platform for institutional strengthening of partners, their alignment with NDRMF’s new features and enhance their understanding to bring constructive projects. “We are heading towards multidimensional and multisectoral projects, whereas Rs10 billion worth 12 projects are already underway,” he added. The workshop participants also visited the NEOC of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and received a detailed briefing on its working and procedures during disaster risk modelling. The workshop had focused on the lessons learnt sharing, challenges and key takeaways, highlighting key areas of accreditation overview eligibility criteria, regulatory and legal regimes, financial management and internal controls, project procurement management, disaster risk reduction and climate change mitigation among others.