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Natural Gas Infrastructure and Local Communities in Sindh: A Case of Three Settlements in Sanghar District (2022)

Written by Zeenat Hisam and Ishak Soomro, this 2022 research report was produced by The Knowledge Forum as a part of its programme to promote a narrative on scaling back fossil fuels in Pakistan, with the support of Tara, a regionally-led grant-making initiative to accelerate energy transformation in Asia.

Pakistan is a resource-rich country and the energy sector — driven on the back of fossil-fuel based solutions – has played a major role in fuelling economic growth and development. Extraction of oil and gas requires huge capital, sophisticated technology and highly skilled labour. The first beneficiaries of the extraction are thus the investors, the operating companies and the management (national or global corporations). The larger beneficiaries are the industries and the households, mainly located in urban and industrial areas across the country. Local population living in hydrocarbons-producing regions in Pakistan do not benefit from natural resources lying under their feet and being extracted by outsiders which include provincial and federal governments.

Local economy and local living conditions at many production sites have remained stagnant for decades. The population living in districts with high endowment of natural resources suffer multiple socio-economic deprivations, particularly in the areas of education, health, and employment.

While the dominant narrative in the energy sector, particularly in oil and gas development, is built around probing of technical aspects, scrutiny and analyses of energy production and its benefits, very little documentation in Pakistan captures the experiences of the local communities vis a vis oil and gas industry. Many resource- rich countries make efforts to improve the local economy by leveraging linkages to production projects. The value brought to the local, regional or national economy from an extraction project is referred to as the “local content”. This snapshot study attempts to touch upon the lack of local content in the context of three settlements in the area close to gas fields in Sanghar District Sindh.

View and download the full report here:

Natural Gas Infrastructure and Local Communities in Sindh: A Case of Three Settlements in Sanghar District

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Karachi’s Ethnic Violence – Women and Crisis Management: A Study in Microcosm (2000)

This research report written for Shirkatgah, Karachi was published in The News, Pakistan on 21 May, 2000.

According to media reports, an average of 630 violent deaths (95 per cent male) per year was recorded in the city of Karachi during the ten-year period from 1990-99. No accumulated figures were released or studied–by any quarter–of men arrested/tried/incarcerated by criminal courts or gone underground. Yet media reports and unofficial estimates indicate that these figures ran in thousands. Armed conflict/ethnic strife in Karachi, thus, has left innumerable (middle and lower-middle income) families without male wage earners, leaving thousands of women and children survivors to cope with psychological trauma and economic hardships.

The following story presents in a microcosm the turbulent life of women affected by forces beyond their control, and attempts to document, courtsey Shirkatgah, the sheer grit and courage of women, and their struggle for survival.

Click the link below to view the full report:

Karachi’s Ethnic Violence – Women and Crisis Management: A Study in Microcosm