GRACE’s new strategy is visualized as an expansion of its areas of intervention in order to benefit a larger population of Pakistan, by enhancing its scope and institutional capacity builidng, and also by developing partnerships at a national level.

This new strategy is based on the reality on the ground, which shows that a large number of the population is living below the poverty line in the country. Almost 77 million people are currently facing food insecurity while the majority is unable to meet their basic needs due to a chronic lack of access to social and economic opportunities. The state of human development is quite gloomy.

The Human Development Index of the Human Development Report 2007/8 by the UNDP ranks Pakistan as 136 among 177 countries. The report indicates that Pakistan still needs to launch daunting efforts to meet the challenges of development by a Human Rights Approach in order to achieve the MDGs. The levels of poverty are rising. Between 1990 and 2004, 17% of the population was living on less than 1$ a day and 73.6% on less than 2$ a day. The Gender Empowerment Measure Rank of Pakistan is 82 with the value of 0.377.

A large number of the population falls in the category of the vulnerable and socially excluded, including the poorest of the poor, disable persons, displaced populations, landless people, out-of-school children, child laborers, bonded laborers and unemployed youths with an emphasis on the girl child.

All of GRACE’s current new and future interventions all have a complete focus on alleviating the issues and problems of the neglected, marginalized and vulnerable communities living in Pakistan.