TDEA implemented an Empowering Youth for Civic Leadership project. The project aimed to empower young Pakistani citizens through training, mentoring, placements with reputable organizations and statutory bodies, support for community projects, and exposure to governance and policy environments. These efforts were designed to equip young Pakistanis with the skills to engage in civic and democratic life, contribute to community development, advocate for positive social change, and step into future leadership roles. The project was implemented across the four provinces, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gilgit-Baltistan, and Islamabad Capital Territory.

Duration: October 2024 – February 2025

Funding Agency: United States Department of State, Embassy of the United States in Islamabad, Pakistan

TDEA implemented an Enhancing Women’s Political and Electoral Participation (EWPEP) project. The EWPEP project successfully decreased the gender gap on electoral rolls in targeted districts, including Gujranwala, Kasur, and Bahawalnagar in Punjab, as well as Swabi, Nowshera, Battagram, and Swat in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), by 9.6 percent.   The project utilized a unique two-pronged approach, focusing on both the supply side by strengthening citizens’ registration infrastructure, as well as mobilizing communities on the demand side. TDEA provided 38 gender desks across NADRA registration centers in the project districts, successfully facilitating 113,635 (around 9.6%) women and causing an additional facilitation of approximately 60,000 women during the project’s implementation who were previously identified as being out of the citizens’ registration loop.

Duration: January 2022 – December 2022

Funding Agency: Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany

TDEA implemented an Advocacy and Legal Aid for Religious Minorities (ALARM) project in collaboration with Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and AGHS Legal Aid Cell. The project made substantive contributions to raising voices for political reforms, the defence of human rights, and promoting freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) in Pakistan. The project successfully identified 171 persons belonging to religious minorities incarcerated on religiously motivated charges through ten prison visits in Multan. The project provided legal assistance to 220 citizens in 221 legal cases filed in courts across Punjab.

Duration: October 2017 – July 2020

Funding Agency: European Union (EU)

TDEA implemented a Citizens’ Voice Project (CVP) funded by United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Its primary aim was to enable civil society organizations (CSOs) in Pakistan to harness citizens’ potential for strengthening public accountability – a prerequisite for improved governance. CVP was unique in its design and approach towards a plethora of complex governance challenges related to accountability, transparency, and responsiveness. The eight-year CVP awarded 364 grants and distributed funds to 227 CSOs to work in 154 districts across Pakistan’s four provinces, Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Jammu and Kashmir. CVP rolled out 16 grant cycles in 26 multidimensional thematic areas. The project’s messages related to strengthening citizens’ voice, establishing state-citizen linkages and enhancing transparency and accountability in the governance framework have reached more than 50 million Pakistani citizens. The project’s design also provided for equipping citizens and government officials to play their respective roles in strengthening the processes and institutions of democratic governance. Towards the end, 70,791 citizens and 10,981 government officials received training to make the state-citizen linkages sustainable and meaningful.

Duration: May 2011 – December 2019

Funding Agency: United States Agency for International Development (USAID)

TDEA implemented a Women’s Action for Better Workplaces (WAction) with the support of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Pakistan. The WAction project set out to intervene for the resolution of a core set of issues deterring and undermining women’s participation in economic life in Pakistan, primarily by addressing the lack of organization and capacity of women workers to negotiate with authorities to improve legal and regulatory frameworks governing various aspects of employment that disproportionately affect them, particularly concerning their rights and entitlements in the workplace. the project mobilized, organized, capacitated and facilitated as many as 140 women workers to form five Women Workers Alliances in the five project districts. These women workers, belonging to public, private, and industrial sectors in each project district, advocated for improved working environments through more stringent enforcement of policy and legislative frameworks governing labour relations in Pakistan.

Duration: December 2016 – November 2018

Funding Agency: Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Pakistan

TDEA implemented an ILM POSSIBLE – Take a Child to School project in collaboration with Children’s Global Network (CGN), and School of Leadership Foundation (SOLF). The project was implemented in four provinces of Pakistan including 25 districts in Punjab, 18 districts in Sindh, 12 districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and 5 districts in Balochistan. The project aimed to enroll out-of-school children (between the ages of 5 and 11) mainly in Government Primary Schools, but also in private institutions if there were no state schools in the area, or if the government schools could not accept more students due to capacity problems. The project was successful in increasing child enrolment as well as increasing the level of awareness to the right to education among the community, while at the same time improving service delivery of education. Under the project, TDEA monitored 6,000 schools, in which 51 civil society organizations participated and 60 individuals were trained. 

Duration: February 2014 – March 2017

Funding Agency: British Council (BC)

TDEA implemented Citizens’ Action for Democratic Governance (CADG) through the support of member organizations of FAFEN, to sustain and strengthen its core programme activities and prepare for a longer-term future programming. This project built on the successes of Supporting Transparency, Accountability, and Electoral Processes in Pakistan (STAEP) programme and represented the planned core election-related programming and activities. The project supported the formation of 48 Governance Support Groups at district, regional, and provincial levels, which raised electoral demands for improved participation. As many as 4,921 citizens were trained for observing Local Government elections, and 9000 citizens were mobilized to contest elections. The programme primarily focused on developing new and strengthening existing relationships between rights-holders and duty-bearers that enabled citizens’ voices to be channelled into administrative, regulatory, and legislative reforms, resulting in improved electoral, legislative, and local governance. During the course of the project, 234 field staff, 5,912 observers, 4,170 citizen volunteers, 3,400 civil society representatives, and 6,000 local government candidates were engaged.

Duration: May 2015 – March 2016

Funding Agency: United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)

Former United Kingdom Department for International Development

(UK DFID)

TDEA implemented a Supporting Transparency, Accountability, and Electoral Processes in Pakistan (STAEP) project through Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN) for improved democratic and electoral processes and achieved in mobilizing citizens for NIC and voter registration, trained and deployed 40,264 election observers for GE-13, facilitated citizen groups at constituency and district level for raising demands for local level advocacy, drafted electoral reforms and trained and deployed parliamentary observers. The project facilitated 322,226 citizens in NIC registration, 522,715 women voters were mobilized, 10,000 citizen volunteers were trained, 40,000 observers were given election trainings, 23 political parties were engaged, while 1,247 candidates, 1,236 politicians, 35 civil society organizations, and 400 filed staff were also engaged.

Duration: December 2010 – August 2014

Funding Agency: United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO)

Former United Kingdom Department for International Development

(UK DFID)

TDEA implemented an Active Citizens Program (ACP), funded by the British Council that focused on training of youth volunteers and encouraging them to monitor schools and seek education sector reforms. The project aimed at profiling youth for conducting school monitoring to identify issues and gaps in the public schools and to conduct advocacy meetings with the government officials and authorities for ensuring that quality education, along with facilities, are provided in the public schools. Through the support of Free and Fair Election Network (FAFEN), TDEA implemented the project in 34 districts. FAFEN’s partners profiled the youth in their respective working units. The organizations were selected based on the volunteer pool available to them. Under the program, 6,000 volunteers and 19 civil society organizations were engaged.

Duration: February 2012 – March 2013

Funding Agency: British Council (BC)

TDEA implemented a Women Voters Mobilization Project and carried out comprehensive observation of the pre-election process and assessing citizens’ perspectives on local issues and quality of service delivery being rendered by local government (LG) institutions. The project activities were in line with FAFEN’s long-term program objectives. With this one-of-a-kind up-to-date research, it was able to intervene through advocacy initiatives locally and nationally using research-based recommendations on the need and scope of amendments to the LG Ordinance. This helped inform public discourse and enhanced the quality of multi-stakeholder advocacy initiatives in the area. In the long-run, FAFEN planned to use the findings of the study in its citizens’ education and constituency relations public information materials and trainings.

Duration: April 2009 – March 2010

Funding Agency: The Asia Foundation (TAF)