2016 was a landmark year for the UN in Pakistan, as we endeavoured to do better – and we succeeded, delivering better results for all the people of Pakistan. This Annual Report showcases the real-life impact of the UN’s humanitarian and development work across this vibrant country. This year witnessed the dawn of the 2030 Agenda, whose Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are a clarion call for transformation – a pledge to transform lives and protect our planet. The Government of Pakistan has heeded this call, embracing the SDGs as Pakistan’s own Development Goals. As a UN team, we are supporting the Government to localise these goals, so that they truly transform the lives of all Pakistanis and the environment in which they live. By delivering together as “One UN”, we achieved greater efficiency and greater impacts. This fourth year of the One UN Programme II (OP II) saw our approach evolve, becoming more results-oriented and inclusive.

The year 2016 marked the 50th anniversary of UNDP’s close partnership with the world’s governments and peoples to realize our shared dream of a world without poverty, inequality and injustice. In my first year as UNDP Country Director in Pakistan, I am honoured to have arrived at a moment in the country’s history which is full of excitement and potential, with intensifying focus on sustainable development, providing economic opportunities for youth and addressing climate change. Fortunately, Pakistan was spared major natural calamities this year, thanks in part to the hard work in improving preparedness and resilience by Government and its partners. This offered much needed breathing space to communities suffering from frequent hazards to enable them to look beyond meeting immediate needs and continue enhancing their living conditions without relapse.

Pakistan has already shown strong commitment to the SDGs, adopting them as Pakistan's National Development Goals. National and sub-national planning and financing frameworks are being aligned to the SDG agenda. New frameworks are being established to track related expenditures, while district-level frameworks are being piloted to highlight priorities, especially those related to health and education.

Water associated problems are amongst the key challenges faced by Pakistan. Pakistan’s water profile has changed drastically from being a water abundant country, to one experiencing water stress. Between 1990 and 2015, per capita water availability declined from 2,172 cubic metres per inhabitant, to 1,306 cubic metres per inhabitant. Pakistan extracts 74.3 percent of its freshwater annually, thereby exerting tremendous pressure on renewable water resources. Despite remarkable improvements in the proportion of the population using improved water sources and improved sanitation facilities, 27.2 million Pakistanis do not have access to safe water and 52.7 million do not have access to adequate sanitation facilities.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as a whole is supporting various governments in implementing the Gender Equality Seal Certification Programme. This initiative aims to ensure that development interventions address women empowerment and gender equality issues, as well as create equitable conditions for women and men in the workplace, both of which are critical to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Certainly, the Pakistan Country Office has made significant strides in gender-related work in Pakistan. Efforts to implement the fifth SDG goal to “achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” are visible in the country programme across its thematic areas in about 30 projects and programmes.

Escaping the Inequality Trap: One of the world's great achievements of the past decades is the significant fall in global poverty. Between 1990 and 2012 the proportion of humanity living under USD 1.90 a day fell by more than one billion people, driven in a large part by China's efforts. Despite this tremendous achievement, income inequality has increased both within and across countries. Today, 16 percent of the global population earns 55 percent of its income, while 72 percent of the world's poor account for just over one percent of wealth.

In accordance with the Government's commitment to eradicate poverty, this report presents Pakistan's first national Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) based on the Alkire- Foster methodology. It has three dimensions: education, health and living standards. To tailor the measure to Pakistan's context and public policy priorities, 15 indicators were used for this national measure, instead of the 10 employed for the global measure. Within these 15 indicators, three indicators are included under the dimension of education (years of schooling, child school attendance, and educational quality), four under health (access to health facilities/clinics/Basic Health Units (BHU), immunisation, ante-natal care, and assisted delivery) and eight under living standards (water, sanitation, walls, overcrowding, electricity, cooking fuel, assets, and a land/livestock indicator specifically for rural areas). Each of the three dimensions carries an equal weight of 1/3 of the MPI. The weights of the component indicators within each dimension are equal unless another justification is provided, as outlined in Section 2.1.3. Overall, a person must be deprived in 1/3 of these weighted indicators to be identified as multidimensionally poor.