Participatory Village Development Programme (PVDP) started its development journey from District Tharparkar in 1997. Mr. Dominic Stephen, founder of PVDP, realized the gravity of the situation and the complex socio-psycho and economic problems of Thari communities and established PVDP in 1997.

PVDP was registered on 15th June 1998 under the Societies Registration Act 1860 in Hyderabad. The organization was formed with a mission to support poor and disadvantaged communities in improving the quality of their lives through encouraging people to organize and mobilize themselves for holistic social change.

PVDP is working in some of the most challenging, poverty and disaster-stricken districts of Sindh Province to support vulnerable communities. Since 1997, PVDP has been engaged in drought mitigation programmes in District Tharparkar and has supported thousands of families to strengthen their resilience to drought.

In 2010, PVDP expanded its work beyond District Tharparkar to support flood-affected communities in severely affected districts of Sindh, including Khairpur, Thatta, Umerkot, Mirpurkhas, Badin and Sanghar.

PVDP has implemented various emergency response and development projects with the support of national and international partners, including Catholic Relief Services, Christian Engineers in Development, Concern Worldwide, Kindernothilfe, Church World Services (CWS), ICCO, Action Medeor, Misereor, Tearfund UK, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), International Rescue Committee (IRC), Concern Rapid Fund, Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe, Christian Engineers in Development UKAID, Pakistan, and Pakistan Partnership Initiative (PPI).

PVDP focuses on poverty reduction, drought mitigation, primary healthcare, primary education, community empowerment, disaster risk reduction and disaster emergency response.

Human Rights, community participation, Gender Equality and Networking are the cross-cutting themes of PVDP's work. In all its interventions, PVDP strives to maintain quality and transparency and remains accountable to communities, staff, government, donors and other stakeholders.

PVDP is governed by a Board of Directors comprising professionals from various development fields. The policies and decisions of the Board are implemented by a competent management team headed by the Executive Director.

In 2009 and again in 2012, PVDP was awarded NPO status recognition by the Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy (PCP) following evaluation of its governance structure, financial systems and programme delivery.