Environmental and Social Safeguards

The WWF is run at a local level by the following offices...

Grievance Resolution and Feedback Mechanism

• Ensure that the communities and stakeholders with whom WWF works with benefit from and are not inadvertently harmed by our conservation actions or those of our implementing partners.
• Provide communities and stakeholders a way to air grievances of harm, infringement, or violation of their human and traditional & indigenous rights, economic well-being, gender equity, and other aspects encompassed under our Environmental and Social Safeguards Framework (ESSF) and Statements of Principles, as a result of WWF actions or omissions.
• Ensure that the Grievance Resolution & Feedback Mechanism (GRFM) is an easy-touse and accessible system / mechanism for the communities and relevant stakeholders to raise complaints and concerns or even provide feedback.
• Ensure that the GRFM is based on dialogue, cooperation, and mutual agreement.
• Ensure that employees, communities, and stakeholders understand the procedures involved in the GRFM.
• Ensure that effective prevention and response processes which are two critical and interrelated efforts are in place.

Scope

Provide a system for responding to and resolving concerns raised by communities and stakeholders on any negative social or other impacts related to WWF conservation work. These guidelines cover the necessary information on WWF policies and grievances resolution process for employees, partners, contractors, communities, and stakeholders.

Three procedural safeguards that are applied to all place-based activities
→ Six substantive safeguards that are applied where relevance to the place-based activities is identified through safeguards screening
→ A list of excluded activities
→ Five cross-cutting issues where intersectionality with the place-based activities is also analyzed in safeguards screening.

The cross-cutting issues that form part of the safeguards screening process are human rights, gender equality and women’s rights, children’s rights, conflict-sensitivity (including human-wildlife conflict) and climate change.

How to raise a complaint, feedback, request, or file a report?

Project stakeholders and WWF-Pakistan staff (collectively the “Affected Party”) are encouraged to first always make use of WWF-Pakistan's GRFM mechanism to make complaints or raise any grievances. If the Affected Party is unsatisfied with the resolution and / or outcome of their complaint, they have the right to appeal the outcome to WWF-Pakistan's Senior Management Team (SMT).
WWF-Pakistan will ensure that the contents of the complaint are kept confidential, along with the name contact details of the Affected Party. Affected Party’s also have the right to request anonymity to protect their identity.
The following channels are the current mechanisms through which complaints, concerns, feedback, and any type of correspondence can be communicated to WWF-Pakistan.
WWF provides a range of options to report / escalate deviations to allow communities and employees to use the channels they feel most comfortable with. It is encouraged that the complainant raises the concerns with the WWF-Pakistan office first.

WWF-Pakistan Whistle-blower Contact Details: WWF-Pakistan's Senior Management Team (SMT

Hammad Naqi Khan, Chief Executive Officer / Director General: 111 WWFPAK (993 725) / +92 42 35465972-77

Rab Nawaz, Senior Director Biodiversity: +92 051- 8480466, 051 – 8857771-78

Zahid S Jadoon, Senior Director Operations: 111 WWFPAK (993 725) / +92 42 35465972-77

Masood Arshad, Senior Director Footprint: 111 WWFPAK (993 725) / +92 42 35465972-77

Rabia Tahir, Director Communications: 111 WWFPAK (993 725) / +92 42 35465972-77

Mahvish Noon, Head of People & Culture / Human Resources: 111 WWFPAK (993 725) / +92 42 35465972-77

Muhammad Fawad Hayat, Senior Director, Recharge Pakistan: +92 51 8911118-9

WWF-International Global Reporting Channel: Ethics Point
File a complaint at: wwfinternational.ethicspoint.com
➢ What is EthicsPoint?
EthicsPoint is a comprehensive and confidential reporting tool created by NAVEX and used by WWF to enable management and employees, partners and community members to work together to address fraud, abuse, other types of misconduct, and other actions of concern that are connected to WWF while cultivating a positive environment.
➢ Who is EthicsPoint for?
EthicsPoint is available for both WWF staff as well as for external stakeholders such as communities and individuals affected by WWF’s work, to raise concerns that have to do with conduct or actions connected to WWF and its activities.

NO RETALITATION
WWF-Pakistan strongly disapproves of and will not tolerate any form of retaliation against those who report
concerns in good faith. Any WWF employee who engages in such retaliation will be subject to discipline up to
and including termination. WWF-Pakistan will take all feasible actions to protect reporters against retaliation.
Anyone who has made a report of suspicious conduct of a WWF employee and who subsequently believes he
or she has been subjected to retaliation of any kind should immediately report it by the same channels as
noted herein

Resolution Process

Note: for ease of reference, the term “Correspondence” shall be used to collectively describe complaints, concerns, and feedback received from the GRFM channels.

Process

Correspondence Received → Log Correspondence into Complaints Form

→ Acknowledgment sent to Affected Party (within 3 days) → Escalation to concerned team
→ Investigation → Review of investigation outcomes

→ Final feedback to Affected Party

→ Grievance closed / returned to Affected Party

Timeline

WWF-Pakistan aims to resolve any and all complaints within 30 working days.

A note on process and timelines WWF-Pakistan receives a lot of complaints, requests, and queries through the GRFM which is a good sign that the public are aware of the GRFM and that they can easily access it and submit their concerns. The majority of the complaints are minor in nature and are not related to project activities. Regardless, all complaints are captured and, where deemed necessary, escalated to the SMT as per policy. Though our process of handling and escalating complaints is clear, we understand that not every issue can be resolved with a quick, one-size-fits-all response. We aim to provide an immediate acknowledgement of the complaints received, but some cases require more time and a deeper investigation.

We recognize that complex complaints - those that involve multiple parties, require a thorough review of data, or need extensive follow-up - simply take longer to address. For this reason, we build flexibility into our response timelines. While we always strive to resolve issues as quickly as possible, we prioritize a comprehensive and fair resolution over an immediate but incomplete one.

The cross-cutting issues that form part of the safeguards screening process are human rights, gender equality and women’s rights, children’s rights, conflict-sensitivity (including human-wildlife conflict) and climate change.

WWF-Pakistan will ensure that the contents of the complaint are kept confidential, along with the name contact details of the Affected Party. Affected Party’s also have the right to request anonymity to protect their identity.

The following channels are the current mechanisms through which complaints, concerns, feedback, and any type of correspondence can be communicated to WWF-Pakistan.

WWF provides a range of options to report / escalate deviations to allow communities and employees to use the channels they feel most comfortable with. It is encouraged that the complainant raises the concerns with the WWF-Pakistan office first.