Aga Khan Agency for Habitat (AKAH) Pakistan project, won a gold prize at the World Habitat Awards, organised with the United Nations housing agency (UN-Habitat) on Thursday.
World Habitat posted the news on their official Twitter handle.
'Pakistan project wins award for shielding villages from natural disasters' https://t.co/QLCTPmIvjO Great piece on one of our 2020 #WorldHabitatAwards Gold winners @AKAHPakistan @TRF_Stories @rinachandran
— World Habitat (@WorldHabitat) December 3, 2020
More than one million people have benefited from the AKAH project that combines satellite images, mapping technologies and the local knowledge of villagers to help build climate-proof settlements in disaster-prone areas of Pakistan.
“It’s not just responding to the effects of the climate emergency, but being proactive in protecting people from its effects, using technology and the knowledge of communities,” said David Ireland, chief executive of World Habitat, a charity.
Pakistan is among the most disaster-prone countries in South Asia, according to the World Bank, and the remoteness of the northern mountainous areas makes response efforts difficult.
It enables communities to build in safer areas, and better prepare for and respond to disasters, AKAH said.
