My Beautiful Thar

Climate change has now become a reality that has intensified the sufferings of people living in arid ecosystems. Decrease in rainfall, rise in temperature and increase in the frequency of extreme events are some of the changes observed in Tharparkar. These communities are largely made up of cattle herders who face the social and financial risk of having to migrate due to climate-change induced drought conditions. 

A. Promoting Resilience 

As part of a community-based, sustainable development approach, the livestock insurance of 2000 animals of smallholder farmers located in 8 villages will be protected under a tech-enabled model which triggers automatic payouts upon biometric verification into Telenor Easypaisa mobile banking.

B. Socioeconomic Integration

Female health & livestock workers will be master-trained and equipped with tablets and 4G internet connectivity to link their communities to doctors/specialists and Vets of existing networks of female providers all across Pakistan via HD Video-consultations.

Our project aims to address the issues of Gender & Inclusivity, Food Security, Adaptation & Resilience to Climate change  by using mobile technology to increase the resilience, socioeconomic integration and gender empowerment of the Thari people. Tharparkar is one of the least developed regions of Pakistan. Drought episodes result in local crop failure, death of livestock and the socioeconomic degradation of the Thari community. Women especially have negligible access to affordable, quality health care. 

Catering to this problem, the breakthrough role of mobile technology via telemedicine and tele-veterinary care in remote communities and humanitarian contexts - that would otherwise not have access to qualified healthcare providers (HCPs) - will be potentially transformational. It will allow the health seekers to receive the adequate healthcare that they deserve without additional incurred costs and from the comfort of their homes via trusted intermediaries from their local community who connect them to medical specialists by leveraging technology with the use of telemedicine. 

The same is applicable to livestock that receive televeterniary consultations. In such cases they are protected under a tech-enabled model which triggers automatic payouts upon biometric verification into Telenor Easypaisa mobile banking in the event of animal disease, malnutrition or death. 

We are combining the power of mobile technology (mobile-enabled insurance enrollment, mobile saving account, mobile-enabled insurance claim/verification and automatic reimbursement) with the potency of the human touch (village health promoter).

Our intervention is designed to strengthen the resilience and adaptability of small livestock farmers to climate-induced challenges through digital services including insurance, tele-veterinary care and FHW telemedicine services which were previously unavailable. Beyond this, we plan to integrate solar lamps, clean energy cook-stoves and drone-enabled, weather-indexed, crop insurance. 

The area of focus for our project, Tharparkar, is one of the most neglected communities in Pakistan, with the lowest Human Development Index in the region. Introducing digital technology and quality healthcare access to this community was integral in building effective connections for  this vulnerable population to basic necessities.Target population which we are catering to is the indegenious people of tharparkar especially the smallholders farmers who hugely suffered due to climate change and due to drought  their animals are at high risk and mortality and morbidity rates are increasing significantly. 

The major source of income for the people of Thar is livestock and their dependency on livestock is so significant that livestock mortality can push them over the edge into poverty. By securing this income for Tharis (especially Thari women), this project promotes the resilience of the Thari people to cope with environmental and socioeconomic disruption.

Our intervention is designed to strengthen the resilience and adaptability of small livestock farmers to climate-induced challenges through digital services including insurance, tele-veterinary care and FHW telemedicine services which were previously unavailable. Beyond this, we plan to integrate solar lamps, clean energy cook-stoves and drone-enabled, weather-indexed, crop insurance. 

Our project aims to address the issues of Gender & Inclusivity, Food Security, Adaptation & Resilience to Climate change by using mobile technology to increase the resilience, socioeconomic integration and gender empowerment of the Thari people. Tharparkar is one of the least developed regions of Pakistan. Drought episodes result in local crop failure, death of livestock and the socioeconomic degradation of the Thari community. 

We have already successfully piloted our intervention in a span of 12 months in the 8 villages of Tharparkar and 21000 lives have been impacted.

Livestock Insurance: The protection of income-generating assets such as livestock is still a nascent concept in Pakistan. The model of the project is based on the provision of livestock insurance. This innovation holds great potential value as it is a major challenge to change perceptions and behaviour in order to embrace a new ‘intangible’ concept in low-resource communities.  and to get them accustomed to the idea. This is one of the major reasons that tangible services such as tele-veterinary medicine, animal health check-ups, animal vaccinations and deworming have been included in the overall insurance benefits package.

Frontline Health workers equipped with Mobile Technology: The health workers operating in Tharparkar are issued with tablets with 4G wifi connectivity so that they can connect beneficiaries to remotely located doctors for online consultation. This model adds value as it enables access to the provision of quality, healthcare services in low-resource, vulnerable populations

 Mobile Money: In this project, the use of mobile wallets for insurance payments was tested and validated. Easypaisa is a major service provider of mobile payments and branchless banking in Pakistan. It was founded in 2009 by Telenor Pakistan. Both premium instalment co-payments and claims reimbursements were conducted via Easypaisa mobile bank accounts for registered farmers.

Current: 2.7 Million

In 1 Year: 3.5 Million

In 5 Years: 15 Million

The number of end-users/customers/beneficiaries we impact will be tracked by our village-and Community animal Health Worker using a mobile-enabled app. In addition, the number of female advocates, policymakers, supporters we impact via our social media campaign can be identified by aggregating and analyzing Facebook data. Finally, the number of farmers whose crop/livestock we protect via our mobile insurance scheme will be captured via our mobile bank account/enrollment data.

Full-TIme: 36

Part-Time: 52

Contract: 150

" As MIT SOLVERs (women & tech category 2018), our Fortune Impact 20  health tech venture has focused on purpose-driven impact at scale for the past 6 years. Heman embodies the beneficiary community, i.e. he originates from Tharparkar, Sindh and understands the challenges of the target population extremely well. Nazia is an international development expert who has worked in research, advocacy and policy as an attache to Senator Sherry Rehman. Maheen is an up-an-coming health systems analyst who has a passion for animals and a purpose to empower the transgender community. Aside from this SOLVER team, the Co-Founders of our organization are digital health innovators and very active in the social entrepreneurial ecosystem as fellows of TED, Ashoka, Vital Voices, Schwab Foundation (WEF) and Synergos. Our extended team has cross-disciplinary expertise in asset protection (insurance), income-generation for women (women's entrepreneurship), digital health, Coordinated, Connected Care and customer-centered design (HCD).

We are a gender-inclusive organization in which women constitute 60% of the senior management and 80% of middle management.  In addition, we have 3 employees with special needs who are employed with us. Finally, we have a major interest in enhancing the resilience of the Transgender community in Pakistan as this community is marginalized and lack both asset protection and dignified, income-generating opportunities.

Proof of concept for the Business Viability of livestock insurance requires the intervention be implemented in low-middle income districts for a longer period of time (2-5 years). As a nascent concept in Pakistan,  livestock insurance has not been not been introduced in the vast majority of agrarian districts before. A phased approach of market development – would include community awareness, followed by end customer-focused educational sessions on the benefits of insurance and sustained promotional activities. For this, we require funding and support that MIT SOLVE and its esteemed network could perhaps provide us access to. 

We are already working in Tharparkar, an area with a high number of IDPs due to climate change. The MST program was designed specifically to mitigate this by increasing their resilience by protecting their livelihoods. 

In 18 months, through the Muhinjo Sohno Thar pilot project,  we have been able to change 21,000 lives and increase the income of 12 women by 95%.  

We have brought innovation through remote training and capacity building of female health and livestock workers. 

Now, these women are helping deliver healthcare  for both humans and animals through telemedicine. 

We are hoping that through this award, we will be able to continue our interventions and strengthen the resilience of the Thrai community, especially women