Ravages of Rain

1 The 2011 Sindh Floods

‘Impact, Causes and Repercussions’

Compiled & Edited by

ZULFIQAR HALEPOTO

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Title: Ravages of Rain Stories of Monsoon 2011 Disaster in Sindh

Compiler & Editor: Zulfiqar Halepoto

Edition: November 2011

Title design: Fazlur Rehman Memon

Published by: Health and Nutrition Development Society (HANDS)

Printed by: Sindhica Academy, Karachi. Published by: Culture Department, Price: 500/=

'This publication is supported by Health and Nutrition Development Society (HANDS)/HANDS Institute of Community Development to

disseminate the quality literature written on the devastation of monsoon rains of 2011 and floods to a large number of development practitioners,

civil society interventions, researchers, policy institutions, decision makers, donors, CSOs, CBOs and INGOs, and concerned citizens.

All rights of the book are reserved to HANDS'/HANDS-ICD

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Contents

Foreword…………………………………………………………………….....… 9 Arif Hasan

Editor’s Note ……………………………………………………………….…. 41 Zulfiqar Halepoto

Articles The Emergency the World Forgot ......................................... 21 Sherry Rehman

A solution for coping with the floods .................................... 27 Najma Sadeque

Role of NGOs in flood relief .............................................. 32 Dr. Abid Qaiyum Suleri

Democracy and disasters .................................................. 35 Javed Jabbar

Do not invite nature’s wrath ............................................. 40 Dr. Manzur Ejaz

Facing the challenge ......................................................... 44 Mohiuddin Aazim

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4 Pakistan floods:a manmade disaster?............................... 49

Neva Khan

Whose flood is it anyway? ................................................ 53 Noreen Haider

Struck by calamity ............................................................ 59 Ardeshir Cowasjee

Repeating History: Floods in Sindh .................................... 63 Mishael Ali Khan

Ravages of monsoon: government’s insensitivity .............. 68 Afshan Subohi

Sindh Floods 2011: History Repeats Itself .......................... 73 Afia Salam

Learning from out disasters .............................................. 80 Sana Syed

Flood response: Too slow, too little .................................. 84 Zofeen T. Ebrahim

Devastating monsoon,faulty drains ................................... 89 Zulfiqar Halepoto

Caring for Pakistan’s children ............................................ 93 Allison Zelkowitz

"Rebuilding of Pakistan” ................................................... 96 Dr. Shaikh Tanveer Ahmed

Ravages Of rain in Sindh .................................................. 104 BZU

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5 Picking up the Pieces ....................................................... 110 Shaista Aziz

LBOD: The culprit behind recurring floods in Sindh? ......... 114 Farooq Tirmizi

Revisiting the LBOD issue ................................................. 118 Jamil Junejo

The lessons we never learn .............................................. 123 Farooq Abbasi

Flood Relief by Caste, Creed ............................................. 127 Zofeen T. Ebrahim

Disaster after Disaster ..................................................... 132 Nasir Ali Panhwar

Disaster and the lost cause .............................................. 136 Syed R. Ali

Devastating Badin deluge ................................................ 140 Nasir Ali Panhwar

The unwanted ................................................................. 144 Shaista Aziz

What Costs More: Preventing Disaster or Rebuilding ........ 148 Mohammad Tahir Hassnain

Rains 2011: Failure of disaster management .................... 154 Mohammad Hussain Khan

Devastation of Monsoon 2011 ......................................... 172 Mohammad Hussain Khan

Ravages of Rain in Sindh .................................................. 185 Anam Tanveer

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6 Charity begins at home .................................................... 191 Murtaza Razvi

A paradigm shift in rural economy ................................... 195 Dr. Sono Khangharani-Zulfiqar Halepoto

Pakistan is again hit by devastating floods ....................... 199 Wajid Shamsul Hasan

Strange wayas of the Islamic Republic .............................. 203 Ayaz Amir

Information aid during disaster ........................................ 209 Huma Yusuf

Away from home ............................................................. 214 Ayesha Hasan

LBOD Drainage crisis in Indus basin .................................. 219 Azhar Lashari

Climate Change Debate

Environment: Climate change realities ............................. 227 B.Khan

Armageddon 2012: Will the world succumb to climate change? .......................................................................... 231 Salman Shah Jilani

Fatal flaws in climate change policy ................................. 236 Arshed Rafiq

Effects of climate change ................................................. 242 Naseer Memon

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7 Freak weather, freakier management .............................. 247 Usman Qazi

Climate change disasters in Pakistan and its consequences ....... 251 Jawed Ali Khan

Thatto Declaration on: “Climate Change Impacts and Adaptations in the Coastal Belt of Pakistan” .................... 255

Comments, Blogs and Interviews Flooding and drought will become the norm .................... 265 Rina Saeed Khan

Unprepared Pakistan faces fury of Mother Nature ........... 269 Shahzad Raza

Submerged in incompetence ........................................... 274 Ali K Chishti

The mathematics of disaster ............................................ 277 Erum Haider

Notes from the flood zone ............................................... 280 Nuzhat Saadia Siddiqui

Floods and selective silence in the blogosphere ................ 284 Salman latif

Where do we stand?........................................................ 287 Naureen Aqueel

Monsoon Rains 2011: Stories of marginalised .................. 289 Amar Guriro

Building communities to tackle disasters .......................... 295 Faris Islam

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8 Bad governance has accentuated the environment crisis .. 299 Rina Saeed Khan

Monsoon Rain Disaster in Sindh? ..................................... 303

EDITORIALS Disaster in Sindh .............................................................. 315 DAWN Editorial- September 7, 2011

The deluge ...................................................................... 318 DAWN Editorial: September 14th, 2011

When water hits .............................................................. 321 DAWN Editorial- August 31, 2011

Inundated ....................................................................... 323 Daily Times: Monday, September 12, 2011

Economic consequences of floods .................................... 326 Daily Times: Monday, September 12, 2011

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Foreword

First of all, I must congratulate Zulfiqar Halepoto for

putting this important book together. Although the book set out to collect and publish what has been written in the media and on the internet about the 2011 floods in Sindh, it has turned out to be much more than that. The compilation, painstakingly put together, contains observations, knowledge, details of relief work, policy recommendations, critical analysis, statistics, and above all, perceptions of the victims of the disaster and its long term repercussions. This documentation goes beyond the 2011 floods for it deals with a host of issues related to natural and manmade disasters and the processes and associated problems of relief and rehabilitation work.

Climate change is an important issue that has surfaced in the book. However, it is important to note that the writers have emphasised that governance and development related issues and not climate change per se, were responsible for the 2011 floods. Writings make it clear that this was a manmade disaster. Because of faulty metrological predictions, warnings of the disaster could not be accurately provided to government institutions and to communities. The faulty design of the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) has been held responsible for much of the devastation caused by the floods.

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10 International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and their consultants were involved in the design and implementation of the LBOD. This calls into question the role of these agencies in the development process in Pakistan and lends support to the many civil society organisations that have been critical of the IFIs supported mega projects in the country.

Many essays and articles also deal with the lack of maintenance of natural drainage channels, embankments, blocking of natural drains by road construction and encroachment on them for agriculture, and the lack of coordination between different line agencies and communities which could have prevented much of the damage from happening. This lack of maintenance and encroachments are seen as having added to the floods and are currently responsible for preventing the flood waters from finding outlets to the sea.

Writings also deal with the scale of the disaster which has destroyed agriculture and livestock, the two main livelihoods of the affected population. The problems related to the rehabilitation of livelihoods and production have been discussed, along with larger issues such as the provincial water accord and land ownership and land settlement, which are seen as integral to a lasting solution to recurring floods in Sindh and to a functioning drainage system.

The writings also point out how many human rights and poverty related issues, not properly understood previously, that have surfaced as a result of relief and rehabilitation work that has been undertaken. In some of

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11 the essays it has been pointed out that food and hygiene conditions in some of the relief camps were far better than what the affectees had been used to in their villages. The absence of education in the rural areas and its repercussions have also been discussed in the writings along with the terrible conditions in which children grow up in the rural areas. Issues related to landlessness and the oppression it results in have also been discussed. Writers have also commented on the abnormally large family size of the relief camp inhabitants and the relationship this has to poverty related issues. Then, some authors have pointed to the fact that the relief work was marred because of strong biases on the basis of caste and creed. The issues mentioned above have to become a part of a larger reform agenda if we have to create a just and equitable society in Pakistan.

Civil society response to the 2011 floods in Sindh has been considerably less than for the 2005 earthquake or the 2010 floods. It has been argued in some of the writings in the book that this is because of disaster fatigue and also because the disaster was localised. However, judging from the writings in the book, it is clear that much of the blame lies in the lack of interest of political representatives in the functioning of the existing governance system and in the overall response to the relief and rehabilitation process. It also lies in the serious problems of transparency, accountability and capacity and capability of the various line departments at the provincial, district and sub-district level.

The recent disasters in Pakistan and in South and South-East Asia region have taught us a number of

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12 lessons. One, an involvement and control of communities with the relief and rehabilitation process can empower them. It can improve their relationships with each other, make it more equitable with state organisations and highlight aspects of injustice and deprivation that have been invisible. Some local and international projects tell us how this can be done effectively. Two, a properly designed community controlled involvement can in the long run create a better physical and social environment and develop employment and entrepreneurship. This cannot happen in the short term and if such a short term attempt is made, it will result in a disaster. Three, for the long term, the setting up of a research and extension agency in the disaster zone is necessary. The work of such an agency is to carry out research on the causes of the problems in the disaster area and develop solutions that can overcome the problems. After the 1987 drought in Tharparkar such an agency, on my advice, was set up as the Thar Rural Development Project. It is now called Thardeep. And four, that the cheapest and most easily available material for reconstruction of homes and infrastructure is the rubble of collapsed buildings. This was observed by me in 1974 Swat earthquake, promoted in the 2005 earthquake and the in 2010 Sindh floods. For rubble removing and stacking tools need to be provided. This removal and stacking of rubble is an important healing process.

However, for a positive response to the lessons mentioned above, a proper governance structure is required. Experience tells us that such a governance

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13 structure has to be effectively decentralised, preferably to the union council level. If it is decentralised to the lowest possible rung of local government, relief and rehabilitation work would require no watan cards, bank accounts, NICs, no objection certificates and complicated bureaucratic procedures for ensuring participation, transparency and accountability. One hopes that the top heavy Disaster Management Agency and its provincial organisation will keep these axioms in mind for the future.

Also, for future development projects, especially mega ones, there are important lessons. One, no tempering with ecology should be permitted and two, no deprivation of livelihoods should result as a result of the design and implementation of the project. Looking at Pakistan’s various mega projects, it is clear that they could have been designed within these two constraints. Finally, it is also clear from the experience of the last three major disasters that we should learn to rely on ourselves which we can do with better governance systems, community involvement, a caring society and the elimination of corruption. Zulfiqar Halepoto’s compilation points in this direction.

Arif Hasan Karachi 27 December 2011

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14 Editor’s Note

What monsoon rains 2011 and subsequently the calamity of floods have done to the socio- cultural and economic landscape of Sindh is very well explained in the essays, articles, news analysis, blogs, interviews and comments, you are reading now. Disaster has eventually further added burden to the squeezing cushion of Pakistan’s economy and challenges to development and governance sectors.

Widespread monsoon rains 2011 have cast a very negative impact on human lives, livelihood means and land of lower and central Sindh. The most food secure and fertile districts of Sindh, Tando Muhammad khan, Tando Allahyar, UmerKot, Mirpur Khas, Tharparker, Sanghar, Badin and Hyderabad were badly affected. Experts have now been talking about threats of food insecurity in the most food secure region of Pakistan.

Material in this compilation is comprised of the first hand eye witness account of Pakistan’s leading development practitioners, experts working in disasters, workers of relief and humanitarian assistance organisations, alliances, consortiums and networks, gross-roots activists and volunteers, disaster risk reduction strategists, experts of gender, women and children issues, professionals working on government

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15 related efforts and interventions during disaster emergency.

Some very interesting articles are written by the representatives of international non-governmental organisations (NGOs), CSOs, CBOs, who have thoroughly characterised the impact of future threats to Pakistan vis a vis our institutional strength, capacity and farsightedness in planning.

May be the topics and titles of various writings of this compilation are different but the thrust is common; that’s is how to save human lives, their livelihood, agriculture, livestock, environment and land from the future threats of climate change, global warming and its disastrous result in the shape of floods, droughts and famine.

Perhaps the language, phrasing and recommendations suggested by the contributors are different but the bottom-line is same; that how long the poor, vulnerable and marginalised people of this country will suffer natural and manmade disasters, and when the state will play its mandatory legal, oral and constitutional role to reduce the magnitude of disaster through good governance and transparent interventions.

The debate is still going on that why our systems are not disaster sensitised? Why governments are still not able to develop a future strategy to take care of the people and communities, who were badly affected by floods, droughts and rains and are still away from early recovery phase?

Concerned citizens of the country often ask the question that where their tax money goes? Why people don’t get access to their fundamental rights to live a

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16 healthy and respectful life? Why their taxes are not spent for the welfare of their poor and vulnerable country people even during national crisis like monsoon rains 2011 in Sindh.

We have witnessed huge losses to the human lives, livelihood means and other resources including government infrastructure and natural resources of land and agriculture. We have seen that from relief and rescue efforts early recover, rehabilitation and reconstruction phases, response of the government was very dismal and disappointing. Despite having enough resources, government was unable to reach the people because of lack of professional systems, lack of sensitization capacity and over-politicization of aid distribution efforts.

This again initiated the debate that why the government were not ready to learn from the previous disasters of Kashmir earthquake 2005 and floods of 2010? Why we can’t adopt strategies drafted and implemented by countries like Bangladesh, Thailand, Philippine and other countries where flooding is now a common and permanent phenomenon due to global warming and they have adopted the strategies to minimize the magnitude of disaster.

During my engagement in flood related activities, I was part of ‘disaster mitigation team’ of Thardeep Rural Development Progarmme (TRDP) and I used to read and review several thought provoking writings on this issue and thus I decided to collect ‘quality literature’ on the said subject so that people should read and feel the pain of disaster and its devastating result in terms of forced

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17 migration, lost of human lives, livelihood means and many more.

In this compilation, I have tried to collect a wide range of literature written on the different aspects of recent monsoon rains 2011 in Sindh, so that there should be a quality document available for the future use of researchers, development practitioners, organisations and scholars working on disaster related issues. This will also be helpful for a common reader to understand the causes of the disaster. I am of the view that documentation is a must to understand the past for the best planning for future. So this book is a humble effort to document the stories of worst disaster of contemporary history of Sindh and Pakistan.

Each contributor to this work has something outstanding to share. This compilation based on selected writings volunteers and offers a vision and strategies to the policy and decision makers and development sector working in Pakistan, to seriously review the lessons learnt from floods 2011 and do something to secure Sindh and rest of the disaster prone areas of Pakistan from any future threat.

This compilation carries spectrum of cohesive and contemplative ideas, deep and diverse vision on issues of common concerns and contributes strategies to make Sindh and Pakistan, a ‘disaster free’ land.

I am highly indebted to my mother Fatima, spouse Munaiza, kids Nissa, Saif and Saad, who are my permanent source of inspiration and spiritual strength to work hard. Their trust and steadfast optimism to my resolve and commitment to change, is always inspirational and motivating for me.

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18 Very special and heartfelt thanks to Dr. Tanveer and

Mumtaz Khaskheli of Health and Nutrition Development Society (HANDS), who accepted my idea and offered their generous support for the publication of the book. I am thankful to my CEO Dr. Sono Khangharani, who always encourages me to do this kind of assignments.

I am grateful for the support, encouragement and company of friends and mentors like Arif Hasan, Dr. Rajab Memon, Nazeer Memon, Dr. Fateh Mari, Shahab Usto and Sindh Democratic Forum team members Abrar Kazi, Professor Aijaz Qureshi, Aslam Balouch, Rafiq Rehman Memon and others, who opened my mind to new ways of critical thinking and writing.

I say thank you to Noor Memon, Fazal Memon, Nadeem Solangi and other friends, technical staff and colleagues who have helped me to make the dream of this book a tangible and visible reality.

I thank you in advance to the newspapers, magazines and journals including Daily DAWN, The Express Tribune, The News, Daily Times, Pakistan Today, Friday Times, Herald, Newsline, Newsweek, Time Magazine and some other websites. Literature published in above mentioned newspapers, magazines and journals is re-produced in this compilation with proper acknowledgment.

ZULFIQAR HALEPOTO MUNAIZAs, A/15, Latifabad # 03, Hyderabad, Sindh, Pakistan (71000) 0092 300 8377241 zhalepoto@yahoo.com

December 25th, 2012

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Articles

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21 Sherry Rehman

The Emergency the World Forgot

Just because it’s not being broadcast doesn’t mean all is well in Pakistan’s flood-hit areas.

Disaster fatigue is not a common sentiment in Pakistan. Since the 2005 earthquake Pakistan has seen many natural calamities and large-scale mobilization campaigns across the country to manage the fallout from those disasters. At every point, the state’s humanitarian response has been substantially augmented by nongovernmental organizations motivated by the severity of the crisis and the magnitude of need.

But after this year’s floods—despite some level of response from local NGOs, young Pakistani activists, relief workers, and the U.N.—aid inflows remain dangerously inadequate and relief workers warn of an impending catastrophe due to unmet pledges and a potential looming breach in the relief-and-food supply line to victims in the difficult months ahead.

Why has the world not responded? First, the international media has almost totally ignored this

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22 catastrophe. The local media has also taken its time getting there: despite the initial reporting on the floods, sustained media interest, with a few exceptions, has been a major challenge. Yet the need for media coverage is equally great, if not greater, than it was during last year’s floods, the country’s worst ever. International aid agencies, in fact, rate the trauma this time as greater than last year’s because almost two million people in Sindh have been forced to flee their homes for a second time in as many years.

One of the reasons the media is looking away is that this year’s floods are different both in nature and impact. Unlike the great floods last year that engulfed the whole country from north to south in a direct river outburst, the 2011 floods are the creature of unprecedented monsoon rains gaining critical mass over a short period of time. The floods have deluged over 6.1 million acres of land, killing 466 in its ferocity, but their fallout has been localized primarily to Sindh and pockets of Balochistan, catching only a short window of the local media’s attention. With the political temperatures rising in the country, the media’s concentration span has almost completely narrowed to episodic reporting, ignoring the misery that has arisen from the destruction of 1.48 million homes and the onset of a watery winter.

Second, the gravity of the crisis has met with disproportionately low public interest because of the physical barriers imposed by the flood path. This has automatically pushed the disaster into a broadcasting ghetto. Given the acute and localized nature of flooding, the rescue phase has also consumed double the time and

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23 resources. Land access to victims has been the first obstacle; entire roads and villages still lie swamped and remote to assistance.

The facts are sobering, and with the onset of a harsh, wet winter, even chilling. With some nine million people affected, the overstretched National Disaster Management Authority has been unable to cope, and the government’s resources and capacity are way below the numbers needed to provide relief, food, and basic medical care to 850,000 in makeshift shelters. Over a quarter million people still remain in the 758 camps dotting this dystopian landscape. The government, as well as humanitarian organizations have been unable to shift more than 65 percent of the displaced back to dry homes from camps simply because the water has no regular river channel to carry it swiftly out to sea.

Without a charted, flow path to the sea, the monsoon waters lie trapped and fetid, destroying livestock, land, and sewerage, spreading disease and misery. Unlike last year’s floods which left behind alluvial riverine deposits, this time the toxic standing water may not only salinate crop soil, it may well destroy grazing land for livestock survival impacting existing food insecurity for vulnerable communities in Sindh and Balochistan.

If human suffering in such disasters can be calibrated on a scale, the most vulnerable are the women and children in the camps as well as those scraping for a living on sandbanks and roadsides. Of the five million at risk today, 143,750 are pregnant women. Many of them require special care, which the mobile

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24 health units are unable to provide. District hospitals are only able to cope with some percentage of trauma patients, while clogged emergency rooms are often unable to meet women’s needs. Others remain hostage to privacy obstacles, unable to navigate the survival chain when confronted with predatory competition for scarce resources, open to abuse and neglect. Non-Muslims have suffered even worse discrimination in certain areas, where relief has been denied on the basis of religious identity and illegal rites of exclusion.

The extent of the damage remains unmapped for most of Pakistan, and the world, except in aid offices and the government’s control rooms. Last year, for instance, Badin district was a hub for relief activities and displaced persons. This year, it has collapsed completely, with 500 villages consumed by the overflowing and controversial Left Bank Outfall Drain to the Indus River. Districts which had never seen more than 200 millimeters of rain have been swamped by five times as much rainfall this time.

Sindh’s Provincial Disaster Management Agency, U.N. aid agencies, local NGOs and the Pakistan Red Crescent Society and its international partners are out in the field, pumping water out, securing people to shelter, and disbursing relief and survival packs, but resource shortfalls hobble critical interventions needed immediately to avert further disasters. The U.N. secretary-general’s flash appeal is still barely 20 percent funded while the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies see other givers remaining “ominously silent” at a time when over five million lives in Sindh and Balochistan are at risk.

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25 Other than mismanagement and governance deficits

at the local level, which are legion in such disasters, compassion fatigue at the international level is compounded by new resource deficits and the diversion of finite aid pools to more consistently headlined crisis sites such as Somalia and Libya. The global financial downturn has also shifted the donor radar inwards, downscaling international assistance, while the recent uptick in branding Pakistan as a terrorist flashpoint has sapped some pockets of sympathy in key Western capitals. However, the situation on the ground is far different, as is the humanitarian response. International aid workers facing the elements in Sindh are unanimous in their anguish at the aid trickle because they neither caricature victims as potential jihadists nor see them as anything but helpless farmers and laborers who stand to lose everything this time in the tsunamic monsoon floods.

Yet despite the sympathy on the ground, repeated appeals including by the U.N. and its World Food Programme remain unheeded, imperiling millions who rely for subsistence on relief operations. At a stage when assistance should be focused on rehabilitating people, there is a consensus now that without real-time inflows we may barely be able to make it. The food supply line itself stands at a red mark, flashing close to empty when the food aid shortfall alone is $107 million in the U.N. system. There is little realization that without further urgent donations, it will be virtually impossible to provide full rations from December.

To compound the crisis, the recent rain predictions for Sindh have triggered fresh alarm on the ground, as

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26 thousands still remain marooned on roadsides with little more than plastic sheets for cover. The Pakistan Red Crescent Society has received better support from its international partners than other agencies, and we are bringing relief and supplies in a fresh winter emergency effort, but much more needs to be done just to keep survivors afloat, let alone carry on with parallel activities such as provision of shelter and rehabilitation. Field estimates tell us that the challenge of restoring livelihoods and homes is going to require serious heavy lifting on the ground, as 2.3 million acres of cropland is compromised and the livestock toll has tipped over 100,000.

As we go into the fourth month of disaster response, the good news is that coordination gaps in the governance of this disaster-management cycle have subsided. The worrying news is that a joint detailed assessment among the Pakistan Red Crescent Society, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and local government suggests that unless emergency appeals are not revised and heeded, hundreds of thousands will remain destitute under a merciless winter sky. In fact if, as donors, volunteers, citizens and humanitarian agents, we do not respond, the 2011 floods will become just another emergency the world forgot.

Sherry Rehman is Pakistan’s ambassador to USA, member of the National Assembly and a former federal minister.

http://newsweekpakistan.com/features/586

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27 Najma Sadeque

A solution for coping with the floods

The government knew the floods would be back. It had at least eight months to prepare for it. But its focus lay elsewhere — cutting deals, juggling power, privatising public assets. No greater callousness could have been exhibited than that towards the fate of the abandoned four million flood victims who never received aid or rehabilitation. This year, many of last year’s victims endure repetition of the same ordeal.

And yet, coping with flood victims is not an impossible task. People have been dealing with floods successfully for millennia. They simply took a cue from one of nature’s greatest endowments: the ability to float on water. Global warming or not, in many low-lying parts of the world where flooding is routine, people literally rise above the waters, building their homes on stilts, living on houseboats, or in homes built on large rafts moored securely to the shore. Although manoeuvrable when necessary, they mostly stay stationery. As the water rises, they rise with them; when it recedes, they

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28 are back on the ground — there is no need for families to leave home.

Increased flooding caused by climate change is leading more people towards floating homes, including in Bangladesh, as well as in the West, such as the Netherlands and in New Orleans, US. It is, therefore, surprising that donors and concerned UN agencies didn’t initiate a similar solution in Pakistan. Nor are local solutions prohibitively expensive as the western high-tech ones are. The most practical lessons come from an ancient culture in the Middle East and from Bangladesh: building floating homes with local, low-cost or free-from-nature materials. In Pakistan, Sindh’s Manchar Lake fisherfolk have been living in houseboats for ages — until the poisoning of the waters by toxic industrial wastewater forced large numbers to abandon the area. In Peru, the Uru people living on Lake Titicaca build their boats and houses of reeds on floating rafts, also made of reeds.

Reed plants proliferated in the wetlands and the Marsh Arabs of Iraq made floating islands of tightly-woven reed packed with soil, atop which they built sturdy, reed homes and barns 100 to 200 square feet in area, with gabled roofs eight to 10 feet high. They fished, farmed and fashioned baskets, mats and other reed goods; and, most remarkably, maintained cows and buffaloes on their artificial islands, creating a thriving, largely self-reliant economy that provided the rest of the country with two-thirds of its fish supply as well as milk and cheese.

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29 Their reasons for choosing to live on 20,000 square

kilometres of marshland are lost in time, but their traditional ways endured for 8,000 years until dredging of the wetlands by French and then British engineers, since the early 1950s, over the next three decades — first for irrigation works and later in pursuit of oil. That was followed by the devastation of the eight-year-long Iraq-Iran war and then the Iraq-US war, by which time most of the quarter-million Marsh Arabs had fled and the wetlands shrank to less than a third of their original area. Early this year, a BBC film covered the current attempt to regenerate both the marshes and the floating lifestyle.

In low-lying Bangladesh, historically a victim of unrelenting and devastating floods, NGOs and individuals, along with the Asian Urban Disaster Mitigation Program (AUDMP) of the Asian Disaster Preparedness Center, Bangkok — a ten-year programme (1995-2005) — came to the rescue, in collaboration with a number of other agencies including the Department for International Development, UNDP, CARE International, the Bangladesh Disaster Preparedness Center and the Comprehensive Disaster Management Programme under the Bangladesh ministry of food and disaster management.

The AUDMP’s practical 90-page handbook on floating homes, complete with fully-illustrated plans, is available on its website. Its hallmarks are the use of local, cheap materials and indigenous or replicable know-how. Similar AUDMP projects have been implemented in nine other countries — Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nepal, Philippines, Sri

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30 Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. All that interested Pakistani parties have to do is to download and adapt the guidelines from the handbook to local circumstances, perhaps even come up with innovations of their own, such as toilets and sanitary disposal.

Detailed, illustrated plans show how wind and water-resistant houses are made of straw, reeds, rushes, bamboos or jute-stalks. For example, constantly splashing waters rot the lower parts of floating houses, so they are designed as replaceable lower panels that are locally damp-proofed with bitumen. Being light and hollow, platforms of reed or layers of bamboo float well and are sturdy. Roofs of corrugated iron (CI) sheets are gabled so that rainwater runs off without collecting. Added gutters enable rainwater collection for drinking. The lower roof-ends are extended so that rain cannot fall on the walls. Conventional mat walls last only four to five years, but with simple chemical treatment involving soaking for 12 hours, they last 15 to 20 years, making the additional 20 to 25 per cent in cost well worth it.

Being ‘low-tech’, the solution doesn’t require huge, crippling interest-bearing foreign loans, although initially, to assist millions of people left with nothing, a catalyst in kind would be needed in the form of bamboo, much of which may have to be imported, along with CI sheets and binding and sealing materials. Growing more reeds could also become a thriving local business.

It would be unrealistic to expect responsibility and results from an inept government given the track record, even if it volunteered. Instead, local philanthropists, donors and private establishments, through reliable

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31 NGOs (including microcredit), could start making on-the-spot prototypes suited to respective areas and provide hands-on guidance. It may take years before all flood-fleeing people on the plains can have floating homes; but if efforts begin now, most families could soon have rafts, the foundation to keep them afloat. Most villagers have always been building their homes with their own hands anyway and they would follow affordable and doable examples.

The important point is these are not just temporary flood-time shelters; they are dry, snug permanent homes that can keep being improved upon, including with solar panels, as in Bangladesh. And when the floods come, the people don’t have to leave home.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 8th, 2011.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/247051/a-solution-for-coping-with-the-floods/

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32 Dr Abid Qaiyum Suleri

Role of NGOs in flood relief

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said rather disappointingly in his hometown of Multan recently that 80 per cent of the flood aid would come through the NGOs and not his government and that of this the NGOs would misuse at least half. He further said that this would instead be spent on bullet-proof cars and luxury expenses, as if those who work in the NGOs were ministers.

The prime minister claimed that had aid come through the government, it would have contributed something from its own resources and would have spent all of it for relief and rehabilitation of flood survivors. The remarks against the NGOs constitute an extremely serious allegation, especially since the head of the government made it. And he did it against those who have been bailing not only him but his predecessors as well by helping the people of Pakistan be it in a flood, earthquake, the IDP crisis or drought.

The NGOs that the prime minister is referring to are in fact non-profit organisations (NPOs). They are humanitarian organisations, charity groups, and relief providers both local and international who in majority of

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33 the cases have missionary zeal and volunteerism. These are the groups who put their lives in danger, and despite repeated attacks on their staff members and offices in the recent past they have continued to serve the people of Pakistan.

Unlike the so-called “people’s representatives”, their staffers don’t distance themselves from the masses, hence they don’t use bullet-proof vehicles. In their budgets they cannot charge more than 20 per cent on personnel costs and have to be mindful of delivering in a cost-effective manner. Unlike our ministers (existing and former) they don’t use these funds to pay the golf club membership of their cronies. And neither do they spend funds meant for export promotion on buying expensive cell phones. I would suggest that kitchen cabinet of the current government be sent on an immersion course, a real-life training where they should work with these organisations in providing relief during various emergency situation to get a feel of the ‘luxury lives’ that these relief providers have.

It would be good if the government leadership and its imported economic wizards were to try and understand why people have blind faith in organisations such as the Edhi Foundation, the Shaukat Khanum Trust, the Khwaja Ghareeb Nawaz Foundation, and the Rural Support Programmes and so on. They should also try to figure out why international humanitarian organisations such as Oxfam, Actionaid, Muslim Hands, Islamic Relief, Mercy Corps, Church World Services, Catholic Relief and so on are able to generate and mobilise funds.

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34 All of these national and international organisations

have established their credibility. They are accountable to their donors. People trust them and they provide relief without discriminating on the basis of race, ethnicity, creed, gender, colour and nationality. They work on selfless basis and don’t try to inundate others to save their properties. The irony is that many of those who work in these NGOs have played an active role for restoration of democracy and in the reinstating of the judiciary.

The prime minister should be told — preferably by the NDMA— the difference between consulting firms and non- profit organisations. He should be told that those who work for flood relief and rescue are the former and not the latter. The prime minister should apologise to the representatives of NGOs for his remarks and his government should hold a meeting to learn just how and why the NGOs were able to mobilise 80 per cent of the funds coming for flood relief.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/46151/role-of-ngos-in-flood-relief/

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35 Javed Jabbar

Democracy and disasters

CAN we redress the deep pain and damage caused by the natural disaster of heavy rains in Sindh when we have already made democracy at its core level a man-made disaster?

If a democratic system is the strongest foundation for societal capacity to cope with challenges like emergencies, then the foundations of democracy were demolished well before the flood havoc of 2010 and the rain havoc of 2011.

Soon after the 2008 polls, instead of removing flaws, the elected local government structures began to be replaced by the appointed commissionerate system. Many of the people who sometimes literally have to eat grass at the grass-roots level are now deprived of participation in decision-making and in implementing relief campaigns precisely when such mechanisms are most needed. There is almost complete unanimity amongst persons in the affected areas with whom this writer spoke about how badly the union councils are missed at this time.

This is not to suggest that the mere existence of directly elected union councils and of indirectly elected

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36 nazims and naib nazims at the tehsil and district levels along with their respective forums would be magically able to effectively handle the crisis. It is to stress that vital components required for an efficient, timely, orderly response to the large-scale distress are missing altogether. Their current absence compounds the problem. Whereas their mere presence in the midst of the people would have enabled the dozen-plus councillors, the naib nazim and nazim of each union council to remain available on the spot, to take anticipatory measures, to serve as a credible communications link between each small area and sources of outside help.

Misperceiving elected and resourced local governments as threats to their own status, MPAs, MNAs and senators elected in 2008 moved vigorously against these basic tiers of a democratic system. Presently, unelected persons holding political party titles have become the arbiters to determine delivery of relief goods, often on a partisan basis. Coupled with a cadre of officials no longer reflective of the impartiality, competence and integrity of previous generations of ICS, CSP and even some DMG officers, a new combine exercises power that is biased and exclusionary.

The spectacle of the president, the prime minister, the chief minister and other holders of high public office visiting affected people to give handouts is reassuring. As is the effort by federal organisations such as the armed forces, the National Disaster Management Authority ( NDMA) , its provincial equivalent (PDMA ) and others,

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37 notwithstanding wide dissatisfaction with the inadequacy of work.

But at the same time, these scenes of individuals and institutions mostly from outside the devastated areas making relief visits only highlight the virtually complete absence of a disaster management system rooted in the local landscapes, operated by local leaderships elected by local people. The scale of the damage suffered makes large external support essential, both from within the country and from overseas. No purely local, community-based system can maintain helicopters, planes or heavy earthmoving equipment to swing into instant action.

Yet if relief units at the level of village clusters such as those represented by union councils comprising populations of 20,000 to 30,000 are organised and led by their fellow residents, a process of quickly accessible, accountable management can ensure prompt, precautionary steps and alleviative actions before, during and after natural disasters.

Elected union councils even in the 2000-2008 phase were not provided with adequate funds and logistics to meet crucial development needs. The upper tiers of the tehsils and districts deprived them of their due share. And there are partisan prejudices at the clan, tribal, ethnic and political levels which deprive some local citizens of their fair share of benefits. Yet a system instantly responsive to immediate local realities was in place to articulate genuine needs. Even now the historic administrative structure which lost ground to the elected system is recovering its position and is obliged to

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38 demonstrate results. But this structure lacks a mandate bestowed at the micro level and is perceived as power that is insensitive and discriminatory.

The conceptual basis for disaster management should be community-centric rather than only the macro-oriented approach typified by the NDMA and PDMA. Its link to an elected process of union councils would be far smaller and more manageable than the constituency sizes of MPAs (about 100,000 voters or over) and MNAs (about 200,000 voters or over). With a union council-linked system, the speed, quality and equity of rapid response and relief work will be vastly improved.

Public-service organisations such as NGOs, both volunteer-led and staff-led, with extensive community-based contacts partly compensate for the absence of elected union councils. They attempt to ensure precision and efficiency in the emergency effort. Yet they are already subject to some ill-informed character assassination by armchair political persons aided by the unchecked hospitality of media hosts.

The actual facts are that several NGOs have already used their own scarce contingency funds, or donated percentages of their salaries or savings to instant relief work and have formulated proposals to donors for funding aid. The early grants provided by the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund (PPAF) to three leading NGOs of Sindh are excellent examples of how the non-government sector can quickly contribute effectively to reducing hardship when basic elected units do not exist.

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39 Streets of small and large towns in Sindh swamped

by water signify the comprehensive nature of the problem. Already beset by badly designed and poorly maintained drainage systems, these urban centres are unable to serve as efficient focal points for delivery of relief services to adjacent rural areas because they are overwhelmed by their own dilemmas.

As the irreplaceable value of empowered elected local bodies is reiterated, the need to review the approach to disaster management becomes more urgent in view of the likelihood that climate change may bring frequent revisitations of abnormal deluges.

The writer is global vice president of IUCN on a voluntary basis and is associated with several public service organisations. javedjabbar.2@gmail.com

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/21/democracy-and-disasters.html

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40 Dr. Manzur Ejaz

Do not invite nature’s wrath

To describe the irreversibility of events and the determination of socio-historic forces, Waris Shah’s favorite expression was “Vagan paiy dariya na kadi murrde” (The rivers bent on flowing cannot be stopped).

For the last few years Pakistan’s rivers are honouring Waris Shah’s depiction when, in monsoon season, they reclaim the paths that have been usurped by human intruders by way of a quickly multiplying population, anarchy, and lack of governance. The rivers are giving an early warning to every Pakistani that if you mutilate nature, then it will take a very cruel revenge one day. And nature’s revenge is so tough that if the earthquake in the Washington DC area last month had lasted 20 more seconds, very few people would have been left to tell the story.

It cannot be determined if Pakistan and many other such countries have ever been more brutal to nature or with their fellow human beings. In both cases the end result is widespread destruction: probably more people perish and suffer because of floods and their intervention in nature than by jihadi terrorists and

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41 sectarian/mafia gangs. It seems like there is a correlation between these both types of brutalities: both are product of irrational approach to earth and the beings that occupy it.

Unlike scientific debates about human- induced global warming, Pakistan’s case is very simple and self evident. An unplanned population has encroached every inch of space that has become the cause of incessant devastations. Since the hapless crowds encroached on reserved lands, drainage and river beds, the monsoon water has no other way but to destroy what comes in its way.

Untill the 70s every village, town, city or desert area had natural passages in case of heavy rain and floods. Now, there is hardly any village or town that has not blocked the flow of rain water: raised paved roads everywhere has created a situation in which heavy rains turn the whole village or town into a dirty water pond that can only breed diseases.

People have encroached river beds, and not only cultivate there, but have made brick houses as well. Given the Indus Water Basin Treaty in Pakistan’s rivers like Ravi and Sutlej, there is hardly any water during the winter but that does not mean that they will be dry in monsoons as well. If India does not utilise most of monsoon water to fill its dams built on Ravi and Sutlej, most of central and western Punjab will be drowned by floods. India has no choice but to release water after its dams are filled. And, taking the worst scenario of evil Indian intentions that Pakistanis assume anyway, if instead of filling its dams it lets the excessive water flow,

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42 areas around Ravi and Sutlej will see a great human tragedy because of hurdles created in the river beds.

Of course the monsoon and floods are seasonal hazards, but during the rest of the year the situation is very grave though not dramatic to capture the attention of media or the governments. How can the localities handle heavy rains and floods when they cannot handle the sewerage water? Sewerage disposal is handled so badly that it keeps on spreading diseases and killing hundreds of thousands of people every year, specifically in the rural areas. Either it creates ponds of dirty water in the streets or it is disposed off in the irrigation channels.

For example, the Lower Bari Doab canal water that reaches the fields in Sahiwal or beyond is heavily polluted with sewerage water: right from its beginning (or even before from Ravi river) every city, town and village drops sewerage in the irrigation distributaries and watercourses. By the time it reaches the crops it has more than half of filth resulting in disease enhancing crops consumed by humans. In addition, such polluted water seeps down to underground water making it extremely harmful for human consumption. No wonder, water borne diseases are so common in Pakistan.

Somehow poor Pakistanis will get through this devastating period of heavy rains and floods, but a lesson has to be learnt: every locality should have a permanent arrangement of drainage of sewerage and excessive water. There are many countries where it rains all year long but they have made befitting arrangements and months of rain do not disrupt normal life.

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43 In Pakistan, instead of making better arrangements

for excessive water discharge, human encroachments have blocked the old drainage systems. Pakistan‘s government, at all levels, should take sewerage disposal and water drainage its top development priority. Every locality, small villages or big cities, should be mandated to have drainage systems ready before next monsoon.

The developers and constructors, whether building residential dwellings or making metal roads should have a legal binding and liability to first make safe drainage system before they do anything else. Communities should be made liable through legislation, if there is none already, to take collective responsibility for making arrangements of disposing of sewerage and rain water. A compulsory drainage disposal fee should be charged as part of land revenue or property taxes.

One does not have to be a lawyer or a judge to figure out that harming others, as individuals or communities, is violation of human rights and safety. Polluting streets and waterways with sewerage does just that: harm others.

Therefore, if the government(s) does not take necessary action then the highest courts should take a suo-moto action to protect the whole Pakistani society. Furthermore, if suicide is a liable act then proliferating sewerage fits this category of crime too. If no one does anything then nature will punish in a way it is doing at the present time.

Dr. Manzur Ejaz is a poet, author, a political commentator and a cultural activist. He is a Doctor of Economics and currently lives in Washington DC.

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44 Mohiuddin Aazim

Facing the challenge

Loss of precious human lives and livestock and destruction of standing crops and properties because of the flood for the second year in a row have exposed our disaster management systems.

Soon after the worst ever deluge of 2010, global environmental agencies had warned that floods would keep revisiting Pakistan. Ideally, we should have been better prepared during this monsoon. The National Disaster Management Authority which is still in infancy with its newborn provincial offshoots can be blamed only partly for all the chaos we are in again. Lack of political will and administrative focus and paucity of funds are equally responsible.

Enhanced fiscal devolution towards provinces provided a cover to the federal authorities who could have mustered nationwide political support on just one thing: what will we do if floods hit again? Sadly, they did not. The Sindh government almost lost much of its administrative grip even over day-to-day business—and watched with helplessness the killings and kidnappings in Karachi.

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45 It too could have better equipped provincial disaster

management mechanisms and encouraged political forces and media to prepare their ranks for facing the monsoon miseries and floods. The provincial government and its political allies did nothing of the sort. And media too remain fixated on what it considered urgent instead of building upon whatever expertise it had gained during a very extensive coverage of 2010 floods—for educating people on what to do in next monsoon.

Chairman, NDMA, Mr Zafar Qadir, admitted during a TV talk show that he did not know about the blockage of 13 escape routes or special spillways built by the British in Sindh to facilitate the flow of flood waters into the Arabian Sea. Their blockage over decades is a basic reason for inundation of populated and cropped areas. One hopes that these spillways are reopened to minimise the devastation caused through a deluge in the future.

Officials of the NDMA say they were not totally taken off guard by the recent floods. After last year’s floods they had created a Strategic Planning Unit and Logistic Cell within the NDMA to enhance their response capacity. They claim they have better coped with the challenges of relief and recovery operations during the current floods than in the last year—thanks to these specialised groups.

The Strategic Planning Unit is raised during a disaster to provide input on how to deal with it most effectively and its Logistic Cell acts as the sole corridor for receiving and dispatching humanitarian aid and keeping a record of inventories.

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46 The NDMA should be credited for its relief and

rescue operations in 2010 floods when it was only four years old and for its capacity enhancement immediately afterwards. The creation of provincial and district disaster management authorities (DDMA) is just one big step taken in the right direction. These newborn agencies at least have crawled to the scenes of the disaster during the current floods, even if they could not run and rush to help.

Another milestone that the NDMA has achieved after last year’s floods is the installation of Pakistan’s first ever Tsunami Early Warning System at Gwadar in collaboration with the UNDP. With the help of Pakistan Metrological Department the system has been tested and activated.

The Provincial Disaster Management Authority of Sindh is clearly struggling to come up to the expectation of some six million flood-affected people and understandably so. It is just a year old and is short of the resources that are required to discharge its duties. Nevertheless, its efforts are showing through whatever little has been done so far for the victims of the floods.

Had the provincial government held district government elections on time and had the elected representatives of district governments been in their place perhaps people affected by the floods would have got some relief much earlier and in better ways. For example, hundreds of thousands of pregnant women who went through unimaginable difficulties during the floods could have been provided duly prioritised relief

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47 through joint efforts of the DDMA and lady councillors in the affected union councils.

After the 2010 floods, the federal and provincial governments made some serious attempts for immediate recovery of the agriculture sector and these efforts bore fruit. Our cotton crop turned out to be much less short than initially feared and wheat was sown over 9.2 million hectares against the targeted nine million hectares.

The damage done to the crops and livestock during the current deluge is smaller in magnitude but early recovery of agriculture sector would be a bit more difficult for the simple reason that financial resources would not be available from the centre because of the devolution of agriculture sector to the province. The provinces are now going to get sales tax on services sector and this should supposedly enhance their resourcefulness. But because this financial year is the first year of this exercise, volumes of provincial tax collection may not reach the desired levels.

Housing and infrastructure sectors require far greater resources for reconstruction. According to the PDMA, Sindh, half a million housing units have been completely destroyed by the current floods. Disaster management authorities can only act as a platform to channelise foreign and domestic aids and assistance and sharing of technical expertise of other countries in this regard.

The actual cost of reconstruction of housing units and infrastructure would be far higher than what

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48 national or international donors are expected to come up with. So, the role of the provincial government and the private sector would be crucial. Low-cost housing schemes could be launched with the help of banks and housing finance companies and infrastructure could be rebuilt on public-private partnerships.

Countries such as US, UK, China, Australia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Malaysia which had participated in the post-flood 2010 reconstruction will have to be kept in the loop. But instead of expecting direct financial help from them Pakistani authorities and entrepreneurs will have to present comprehensive plans with specific requirements of foreign investment along with mutually acceptable economic rationale.

The writer is a freelance journalist based in Karachi

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/25/facing-the-challenge.html

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49 Neva Khan

Pakistan floods: a manmade disaster?

It is often unexpected things that cause the most impact, as my 5-day visit to Sindh province in southern Pakistan in the first week of September proved.

The trip had been planned for weeks; I was going to visit our local partners and projects in the province to see the progress being made in helping flood ravaged communities to recover after the catastrophic 2010 floods. What I hadn’t anticipated was that I would find myself in the midst of another flooding emergency.

Driving through Badin province I encountered major highways flooded, search and rescue activities and floodwaters that were well over a metre deep as far as the eye could see. The roads were lined with people who had fled their homes with what few possessions they could salvage and were now living under dirty plastic sheeting, ripped tents or any kind of covering they could improvise.

We visited a camp where the conditions were shocking; people had no spare clothing, little food and poor hygiene facilities. Children ran bare foot on filthy

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50 corridors which were scattered with open fires where women were taking the little flour that they had to bake chapatti – the only food their families would eat perhaps for the next few days.

The impact on me was strong; these people were in desperate need and Oxfam would have to launch a response. But this disaster should not have been unexpected, and its impact should not have been so huge. The rains have been unseasonably heavy but this alone does not explain the extent of the devastation. Poorly designed and maintained flood protection infrastructure has yet again failed with numerous breeches occurring in Southern Sindh.

The result has been gallons of saline water saturating Badin and the surrounding provinces, sweeping away people’s houses, killing cattle and crops and cutting off access roads. Many are calling this season’s flooding a ‘man made disaster’.

The tail end of my trip brought more positive sights. We visited villages in what were at that point less badly affected areas of Sindh (although that has regrettably now changed for the worse) where Oxfam along with local partners had been working with communities that had been totally washed away in the 2010 floods.

Communities together with Oxfam and our partners RDF and SAFCOW were rebuilding their homes, learning good hygiene practices, and preparing themselves to minimise the impacts of future disasters. I was proud to see Oxfam’s achievements, but that was dwarfed by how

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51 impressed I was with the ingenuity and determination of the communities themselves.

But again, I found myself disheartened to see that many of the other villages we drove past were being rebuilt without any thought for ensuring their resilience against future disasters. Latrines and water pumps were being built on low ground and houses were being rebuilt from mud and straw so that, heaven forbid, if the floods were to come again these would be the first thing to be washed away.

Pakistan is a country that is highly prone to disasters. But while such events will inevitably cause destruction, they don’t always have to be so devastating on the lives of women, men and children they effect. Oxfam’s projects always plan with future disasters in mind. We have long been arguing for the incorporation of disaster risk reduction (DRR) principles into construction, planning and infrastructure design in Pakistan.

To me, it seems insane for the government, the donor community and NGOs to be constantly reacting to one crisis after another, when with a little forethought and bold, proactive investment the Government with the support of the international community can help to minimise future impacts. As a recent Oxfam report noted, an initial investment of $27 million in disaster risk measures such as early warning systems, flood control and more resilient housing could have greatly reduced the estimated $10.9bn to the government cost of last year’s historic floods. We are yet to see how much loss

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52 of property and life could have been prevented this time round.

When I think about the communities that we visited down in Sindh, I know that I can have hope that those living in villages rebuilt by Oxfam and other organisations who plan ahead for future disasters will still have homes and villages to return to when these flood waters eventually recede. But for those people in the villages that have been made and remade of straw and mud, I fear that I can’t be so hopeful. Let’s make sure that we all give them a better chance next time.

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2011/09/23/pakistan-floods-a-man-made-disaster/

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53 Noreen Haider

Whose flood is it anyway!

On the night of eighth September 2011 unusual amount rain started lashing the districts of southern Sindh including Badin, Mithi, Mirpur Khas and Saanghar and continued unrelentingly for the next two days before it took a break. Its immediate effect was that large areas became inundated and communication was broken

down. The rain continued with intervals and the situation grew grimmer as people were trapped in their homes and stranded.

The rain affected districts of southern Sindh are among the poorest and most undeveloped in the country and the majority of population consists of very poor people who mostly agri-labourers called “harees” in

Sindhi. A large majority lived in mud and wicker huts in villages or semi “pacca” brick houses. The rain badly damaged the extremely hazard prone small houses which were absolutely defenseless against it. The huts and small houses were either washed away or were totally inundated. The rain water destroyed whatever meager possessions that people had including dry rations and a few clothes.

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54 Pakistani flood affected villagers carry relief supplies

through floodwaters in Ghozo village, Sindh province on September 24, 2010. Torrential rain began falling in northern Pakistan in July and the floods have since moved slowly south, wiping out villages and farmland, and affecting an area roughly the size of England. The UN

estimates that there are currently 1.2 million people in 6,300 camps and settlements across Pakistan with more than 80 percent of them in Sindh. Some 21 million people have been affected by floods that have ravaged Pakistan, according to UN figures, including 12 million who need emergency food aid.)

The affected districts have normally dry to very dry

weather and that is one of the reasons that they were so very ill prepared for the massive rains. According to Pakistan Met Department, Badin has a usual monthly average of 27 mm of rain whereas it experienced 284 mm of rain, Nawabshah has 16 mm of rain and it experienced 353.2 mm of rain and Dadu which is driest district experienced 348 mm of rain in the month of September.

The interesting thing is that the Pakistan Metrological Department had announced on 13th June 2011 from their National Weather Forecasting Center that the total rainfall received in 2011 in Pakistan would remain ten percent below normal average in Monsoon season and that was communicated to all relevant offices in all the provinces. The announcement also stated that the report was prepared with 80 percent

accuracy and it was meant for planning purpose[1].

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55 Resultantly no disaster management planning was done as no rain was expected and all relevant departments and offices went to a deeper slumber.

The rains were heavy and long and they took their toll on the weakest and the most vulnerable including

the embankments of the drains, canals and small and medium sized nalas that breached from place to place and further inundated the districts including thousands and thousands of acres of agricultural land and farms. Also badly hit were the urban areas and small towns where the rain water chocked every possible drain and pipe and streets became choked with dirty water.

There are two distinct scenarios in the flood affected

districts in the urban and rural areas. The damage and destruction is visible in both but they have to be seen separately. The reason of the massive breakdown of the urban areas or towns was the extremely poor quality infrastructure that existed there even before the rains. The roads were broken and full of pot holes, the drainage system was ancient and the whole area generally retained the hundreds of year old ambiance,

totally unaffected by modern times.

There are almost no municipal facilities in the districts of Saanghar, Badin, Nawabshah and Tehsils like Tando Muhammad Khan, For example any visitor can actually see mountains of garbage dumped on the entrance of Saanghar district stinking to high heaven and heaped to the height of a two story building. All elected members of Sindh assembly, Chief Minister Sindh and his

entourage have passed along this monstrosity many

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56 times but nothing has been done about it. This is true to most districts in Sindh. The local people have informed that theses open air garbage dumps have existed like this for years and are a part of the general landscape.

Disasters do not just happen. It is always the already

existing vulnerable situation of any place combined with poor governance, in ability of the people to cope and the lack of capacity of the public departments that creates disasters out of the natural phenomenon of rains, floods or other natural hazards.

If the districts had better drainage and waste removal system and the people were not living in such painfully disaster prone housing , even the higher than

average, rainfalls would not have caused much damage. There are countries in the world that have rainfalls throughout the year and it is so well managed that not a single drop is ever left standing on the roads. But in Sindh just three or four days of heavy rains was enough to cause devastation because of the rotting infrastructure, poor governance and the vulnerability of people.

As for the rural areas and agricultural land the reason of their inundation is the breach of the canals, nalas and drains which further aggravated the situation of the rain affected area. The irrigation department Sind had done nothing to monitor the water channels or strengthen them where needed, all year long. The Southern Districts of Sindh are littered with small and medium sized drains and canals and they need proper

maintenance. If the recommendations of the Flood

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57 Commission report after the 2010 Floods were even marginally followed by the Sindh government this year’s devastation due to canal and drain breaches would have been avoided easily.

Rain is a natural phenomenon and a great source of

fresh water to replenish the ground water. It is a shame that it turned into a disaster for so many people. The mismanagement of the water system in Sindh has now become proverbial and the authorities have simply refused to learn anything from any disaster. Once the natural hazard turns into disaster there is usually nothing else to do but provide rescue and relief to the victims. The pre and post disaster time for planning, preparation

and mitigation is all wasted doing nothing.

The poorest of the poor in Sindh are now literally left at the mercy of the elements. I have visited all the districts of Southern Sindh and travelled to far flung villages. I can say with responsibility that there is absolutely nothing being done to manage the stagnant water even in the towns, let alone the villages and farm lands, by any government agency. It is assumed that

perhaps water will manage itself or eventually evaporate.

There is however a simple solution of water drainage and one does not have to be a disaster management expert to realize that. There are literally dozens of small and medium drains passing along the rain affected districts and the amazing thing is that most of them are either dry or there is very small amount of

water in them. In many areas all it would take is to drain

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58 the water through pipes and pumps into the nalas in order to rid of most of it but it seems that there is no interest of the government in doing this. What the real reason behind the inertia is, only they can tell but one thing is certain that the rains have not caused disaster; they merely exposed the underlying disaster lurking for

years.

About Author: Noreen Haider has written this article for Climate Himalaya’s Youth Speak Column. Noreen is a journalist and educationist from Pakistan.

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59 Ardeshir Cowasjee

Struck by calamity

“THIS follows on from mention in my recent column on Karachi’s rain of the “colossal rain damage in the rural areas of Sindh, caused by defectively planned drainage systems”.

Rain-flooding started on Aug 8 affecting 22 out of the 23 districts of the province. Excessive rainfall was recorded at Mirpurkhas (28inches), Badin (25inches) Shaheed Benazirabad (24inches), Umerkot (30inches) and Dadu (28inches), with the maximum of 41 inches at Mithi.

An Internet FAO/Suparco satellite monitoring report reveals: “The gradient of the coastal areas is almost horizontal and movement of water in the flooded area is taking place at a very slow pace. The result is that large rural areas, crops and infrastructure are under water. For the first time after partition, the residents of some of the areas of Thar Desert and its upper reaches had to be evacuated by boats. A large number of farmers lost their livestock on way to safe places, on account of non-availability of fodders and exertion. There is hardly a

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60 place in the severely affected area that is free of the hazard of standing water.

“…There was a massive displacement of human beings and livestock. A large number of valuable livestock of the displaced farmers, migrating to safe havens, died on the way because of hunger and exertions. …6,945 settlements comprising 0.66 million houses, 8,000km national and provincial roads (kachha pakka), 127km of railways tracks have been damaged. Several breaches/overflows in protective bunds of the canals have added to inundation in districts Badin, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Tando Muhammad Khan.” Crop damage is also extensive.

Most of the blame can be laid at the feet of the poorly designed, maintained and encroached-upon drainage systems, including the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) project built at a cost of $1bn.

Let us look at the agricultural water system of Sindh. The Indus has provided some degree of irrigation water close to its banks for thousands of years.

To compensate for the inadequate annual rainfall of around 10 inches, in the 19th century the British established in the Indus Basin the world’s largest network of barrages and canals, one with unique technical, institutional and social complexity, to bring around 35 million acres of arid land under cultivation, including about 12.6 million acres in Sindh through the Sukkur (1932), Kotri (1932) and Guddu (1962) barrages.

Today, this contributes to 25 per cent of GDP, 65 per cent of employment and 80 per cent of exports from

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61 Pakistan. According to the inter-provincial Water Accord, Sindh has access to 42 per cent of Indus water through three barrages, 14 feeder/main canals, 1,426 branch/ distributor/minor canals and 43,000 watercourses.

Irrigated agriculture is a mixed blessing. River water that is spread over land to grow crops seeps into the ground, and, over decades, raises the underground water-table. As this water rises, it brings underground salts up to the surface, leading to water-logging and salinity. Much agricultural land has to be abandoned or its cropping intensity reduced.

In the 1960s, deep tube-wells were installed in the Kotri basin to lower the water-table and remove salts, while many minor drains carried away storm and surface drainage to the sea, or, in the initial stages, into nearby irrigation canals.

In the late 1960s/early 1970s, a 100-mile ‘spinal drain’ was constructed from middle Sindh to the Thar desert and the Rann of Kutch. More detailed studies resulted in the construction over 1987-97 of the LBOD Phase-I (Phase-II to extend into upper Sindh in the future was later abandoned), a supposedly ‘new and improved’ spinal drain for middle Sindh, with wide-ranging secondary drainage and remodelled irrigation canals, and some spare capacity for rain-storm drainage.

The LBOD has been controversial from the start. It never lived up to its promise, it was not ‘owned’ by stakeholders, and is generally believed to have numerous design flaws. It did not help much in drainage

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62 during the 1999 cyclone, or the 2003 rain-storm, and is said to have fared even worse this time.

The extent of the gross apathy and incompetence of the governance systems in Sindh can be gauged from the following: it took a month for our president to wade through his hometown before making an international appeal for help (we later learnt that Rs5bn from 2010 floods has not yet been utilised); the national/provincial disaster management authorities are largely invisible; victims avoid pathetic government-run camps; and international donors are sceptical and a huge hoarding by USAID in Karachi displays a free number for whistleblowers who want to give information about aid fraud.

Besides, MPAs have advised affected people to ask for pardon for their sins(!); water-borne diseases (and dengue) are threatening; the president spent two weeks at Bilawal House to personally (but alas, impotently) supervise relief efforts; the chief minister complains helplessly about encroachments on drains; the Supreme Court has begun to suo moto-monitor government relief activities; and counterfeit water purification tablets and medicines are being distributed. The list is endless.

Climate change promises that such catastrophes will become regular events. Sindh needs enhanced administration infrastructure, smarter forecasting/ warning systems, improved flood preparedness, superior disaster management and better governance to cope. Do the people not deserve this? But whence do they get it?

http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/02/struck-by-calamity.html

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63 Mishael Ali Khan

Repeating History: Floods in Sindh

Tsunamic deluges of monsoon rains have ravaged Pakistan once again. Floods have affected another 8 million people this year, while twenty million people are still struggling to cope with the devastation caused last year. While the scale of the disaster and the aid response is thought to be less than last year, the misery for those affected is just as real and the repercussions, much greater. Millions who were already displaced from last year’s floods have once again lost everything and now an additional 1.8 million face the same reality.

The floods began early last month but torrential rainfall has compounded them, cutting off many villages and making them inaccessible to government and relief workers. Over 2.8 million acres of agricultural land has been inundated, destroying over 80 percent of banana, dates, chilli, sugar cane and cotton crop (equivalent of 2.3 million bales).

Victims have lost over 120,000 cattle, while hundreds of thousands more livestock and poultry are at risk as water-borne diseases multiply. To make matters

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64 worse, the livestock that has survived might die of starvation as fodder has been washed away. The fate of fish farms has been similar, dealing another severe blow to thousands of livelihoods. That in turn gives rise to massive food shortage and food insecurity. The amount of time it will take to regain use of agricultural land will cost the economy greatly.

Despite several warnings from aid agencies about the possibility of floods this year, the Pakistani government was confident that they were prepared and were capable of handing the situation without the UN and other international organisations. As heavy rains struck Sindh in early August, the chairman of the NDMA, Zafar Iqbal Qadir insisted the organisation had the resources to manage the floods and therefore did not require international assistance.

Since donors sent funds directly to international organisations, the government appears unaware of where the money was spent. Although the international community pledged a total of $1.9 billion dollars for the 2010 floods, 67 percent of this amount ($1.3 billion) was released and only $400 million has been accounted for in documentation. Therefore, government agencies felt that they should not rely on international assistance. However, donors are unimpressed with the government’s aid appeal in a context where the elite is seen to evade taxes and money is spent on other ‘populist’ programs.

It is apparent that both the government and international agencies faced transparency and accountability challenges that curbed relief efforts last

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65 year. Other factors, including the socio-political and economic volatility in the country also had a negative impact. The government was not prepared to deal with such a disaster due to an inadequate disaster management system, poor emergency relief coordination and overlapping mandates of different organisations. A disaster management framework and policies are already in place but is important to transform them into effective management systems. In addition, clarity on the roles of government officials at the district, provincial and federal levels was urged by international agencies working on the ground who felt it would help prevent duplication.

Despite last year’s hurdles, the NDMA claimed to have a contingency plan for floods this year and yet were unable to organise efforts for the 750,000 people who became displaced after initial rains. Meanwhile, UN agencies remained on standby until the president’s visit to flood-hit areas last week when the UN and other agencies were asked to intervene. Nearly three weeks after the initial floods, PM Gilani appealed to the international community. As the UN launched a global appeal for $357 million to help flood victims, international donors have made it clear to the government that they will not step forward unless a transparent mechanism is set up in which all damages and losses are evaluated by a third party.

Given Pakistan’s current domestic fiscal crunch, it is unrealistic to expect that they would be able to respond to a disaster of this magnitude without any foreign assistance. Nevertheless, the government’s appeal for

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66 foreign aid was slammed by opposition parties who felt the government should utilise its own resources. However, they did not explain where the government would mobilise such emergency resources from domestically. The parties also condemned the government’s inability to adequately prepare for the floods. Such statements assume that the government has the capacity to deal with such situations yet when the first wave of floods hit, there was a realisation by government authorities that the situation was out of their control. These factors highlight the need for a coherent policy on relief and rehab efforts so there is clarity amongst government and relief organizations about their roles and responsibilities during an emergency.

The NDMA has already spent over 1.5 billion rupees on relief efforts and this number will increase to 8 billion. To date, 2,923 relief camps have been set up by the NDMA that accommodate 625,293 men, women and children. In addition, thousands of tents and food ration packs are being distributed by the government and the UN has also begun its multi-million dollar humanitarian assistance program in Sindh along with other international organizations helping the government focus on issues related to health, hygiene, food security and water and sanitation as well as assisting with the distribution of emergency relief goods.

According to a statement issued by the NDMA, health, education and communication infrastructure has been substantially damaged in Sindh. 1.4 million houses have been destroyed, with nearly half a million in Badin

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67 alone. This does not include damage caused by the floods last year. One is forced to question whether the scale of the destruction could have been averted if the government had genuinely prepared for flooding this year. For instance, in low-lying parts of the world where flooding is routine, people build their homes on stilts or on large rafts moored securely to the shore. As the water rises, the home rises with it and when it recedes, the houses move back to the ground, making them more resilient to disasters like floods. This has been done in neighbouring countries like Bangladesh. It is a fairly “low tech” option that does not require heavy investment as houses can be made from straw, reeds, rushes, bamboos or jute-stalks.

The floods have already claimed over 300 lives, many of them women and children. The outbreak of disease along with food shortages means that the number of lives lost due to flooding is likely to increase. These institutional challenges must be resolved as soon as possible if the government wishes to avoid a repeat of last year as long term challenges lie ahead. It is already too late for the millions of people reliving this ordeal.

The writer works as Program Coordinator at the Jinnah Institute http://www.pkarticleshub.com/2011/09/23/repeating-history-floods-in-sindh/

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68 Afshan Subohi

Ravages of monsoon: Government’s insensitivity People should brace themselves up for food shortages and the industry for a dearth of raw materials as monsoons devastate the fertile agricultural lands in Sindh. Yet another catastrophe is said to be in the making. In the absence of support from the government/agencies, hapless people in the province are trying to salvage valuables from the water-soaked heaps of their belongings.

The heavy showers over the past month has washed away several thousand mud houses in the villages and left the vulnerable to fend for themselves and their

dependents. In rural Sindh, social and physical infrastructure (roads, transport, hospitals, schools, utilities such as gas and electricity) are thinly spread or non-existent.

There was an urgent demand for a swift action from those who care to avert a human catastrophe as marooned families start moving towards towns and

cities in search of food and shelter. “The government needs to show some sensitivity towards its own vote

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69 bank and energise relevant departments and ministries to minimise losses and maximise efforts to muster support for the landless farmers,” said a retired agriculture expert disgusted with the PPP government’s apathy.

People contacted in the affected areas of Badin, Thatta, Hyderabad, Tando Adam, Tando Allahyar, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot and Sanghar told Dawn that the threat of epidemic looms large in the province. In some places where crop is rotting diseases are spreading fast among people and livestock. The standing Kharif crop in the region, often described as the food basket of Sindh, is submerged in water, inflicting huge losses.

The dawdling response of the provincial government, entrusted with the responsibility of managing agriculture under devolved arrangement post-18th Amendment, has left people of Sindh wondering if the amendment has served or hurt the people of smaller provinces.

Monsoon started in late July. According to reports reaching here, it took the irrigation department of Sindh

over one and a half months to close canal head gates. The laggard action of the said department aggravated the crisis. Besides, the administrative lethargy, the gross negligence of the leaders and members of assemblies was criticised by locals as the crisis assumed proportions of a mammoth tragedy.

Contrary to the government claims, much of

reconstruction work to revive the infrastructure

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70 damaged by floods last year was nowhere near completion despite availability of ample resources for the purpose. The absence of NGOs from relief work was also blamed on the ruling party that delayed issuing any national and international appeal to cope with a situation described to be worse than the last year’s

floods.

The initial estimates put the crop loss at Rs250 billion. Cotton and sugarcane production could be half of the expected four million bales with about 1.27 million acres of the silver fibre affected. About a million tons of paddy and as much as 25 per cent of sugarcane crop worth Rs21 billion might have been destroyed.

Vegetable, fruit orchards and fodder losses, put together, may touch over Rs15 billion.

Agha Jan Akhtar, the provincial secretary of agriculture rejected public criticism and insisted that 80 per cent work on reconstruction of damaged irrigation network after last year floods has been completed. “It is absurd to blame the government for the vagaries of nature. It is a cloud burst, no one could possibily have

prevented it,” he said over telephone.

“The government is doing all within its means to manage the situation”, Akhtar claimed and asked the media to observe flow of water at Kotri before accepting the accusation that headwaters have not been closed. He promised some data of loss assessment but that did not reach on time.

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71 Some independent agricultural experts believe that

Pakistan Peoples Party government has failed Sindh by misgoverning the province. “The first thing should come first. Instead of helping the desperate people affected by the current rains, the government seems to be enjoying political games of choosing and dumping partners,” Dr

Qadir Bux Baloch, who retired last year as Agriculture Development Commissioner, remarked over telephone commenting on the situation that he finds very dicey.

“Aware of the vulnerability of the affected people when I approached multilateral agencies who participated in the relief work last year, I was told that the rules bar them from entering directly or indirectly in

the relief operation until the government issues an appeal for help. Nothing but insensitivity explains why such an appeal has not been issued when people desperately need help and intervention to save their lives”, he added. The observation was made before President Zardari made an appeal for relief to the UN on Thursday.

Dr Qazi Masood, chief economist of Sindh, said the

provincial government held a series of meetings to assess losses and evolve a strategy to deal with the challenge. He promised an exclusive briefing to this writer but was not available for his comments at the agreed time.

Some sources in Sindh government stated that a proposal of direct relief for the farming community of Sindh has been discussed but the status of progress on

reconstruction projects did not come under discussion.

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72 “Everyone seems to be singing their own song with

efforts more focused on fund procurement from the federal government and donors than on the quality and the quantity of intervention to provide relief and assistance to the affected people.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/12/ravages-of-monsoon-govts-insensitivity.html

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73 Afia Salam

Sindh Floods 2011: History Repeats Itself

Nothing hits one more than the phrase ‘water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink,’ when passing through those parts of Sindh hit by the monsoon rains that started in August and laid to waste most of the province within just a couple of weeks. What makes people angry though is the fact that it needn’t have been so. Yes, the region received unprecedented rainfall, but the disaster that followed was more man’s doing than nature’s.

Last year, when I joined a humanitarian organisation working for the rehabilitation of the 2010 flood victims, I visited interior Sindh – the Thatta, Sujawal side to be specific – where I saw the despair, the inundated fields, collapsed houses and make-shift shelters. Over the course of that one year, during repeated visits to the area, I was witness to the resilience that is part of the DNA of all Pakistanis: bit by bit, straw by straw, the affectees picked up the pieces and despite the tremendous losses they suffered, I saw them build thatch and bamboo huts, and tend their lands wherever the water had drained or dried out. Come winter and

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74 there were miles and miles of huge sunflowers on both sides of the road.

By the time summer came that year, the entire drive was framed with lush green fields and newly built poultry farms showing signs of return to normalcy. But then came the rains, and what has happened since then is a burgeoning disaster whose scale has grown by the day – and not just because we decided to ignore the monsoon alert issued by the Met office.

The recent devastation in 2011 was a classic case of “we learn from history that we never learn from history.” Being part of the humanitarian organisation’s network, we were privy to the detailed plan prepared by PDMA (Provincial Disaster Management Authority) to combat any impending natural disaster and humanitarian crisis. The draft was impressive and comprehensive, right down to the number of “de-watering” pumps required in each union council. Impressed, we made our own preparation by getting ready hampers of food and hygiene items in case of sudden need. And thank God we did, because as soon as the rains struck, we were off to distribute them the very next morning to the flood IDPs of last year, who lived in make-shift settlements on government land, but in low-lying areas.

This, however, was just the beginning. The very next day we heard reports of breaches in the saline water drains in Jati, so off we went again. By the time the district government was swinging into action, shifting the displaced in schools, education became an early casualty in these areas where schools had only just opened after the summer holidays. While these efforts were

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75 underway, Badin was hit – and what a heart-breaking sight it was…

All fields inundated and standing crops of cotton, rice, sugar cane and fodder destroyed; millions of rupees worth of fish, fish seeds and feed out of the fish ponds and into the fields; stored grain awash in flood waters; and people living on the roadside as roads were the only higher ground. Even parts of the city were inundated, including government buildings. The displaced were in a pitiable condition; sitting on charpoys in water-logged grounds, wading through dirty water to get to the relief distribution points, they and their children’s skins was showing signs of infection because of the dirty water.

On subsequent days, more and more breaches were made in Tando Mohammad Khan, Mirpurkhas, Mithi, Kunri, and soon most of lower Sindh was in the grip of a disaster that turned the lives of over eight million people upside down. The scale of this flood was bigger than the 2010 floods in terms of damage to one province.

So where were the NDMA (National Disaster Management Authority) and PDMA? When these organisations finally shuffled to their feet, it was a case of too little, too late. People were marooned in villages that became inaccessible to even the relief agencies as the roads were washed away. Once again, it was up to the Pakistani marines, navy, army and their resources of boats, helicopters and hovercrafts that were deployed to reach the affectees, or to transport relief to them. Boats from the fishermen community also were utilised in a similar manner.

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76 Major NGOs tied up with local on-the-ground

community-based organisations to provide relief, something which is becoming increasingly difficult to do by the day due to cases of rioting and looting, not just by criminal elements but also by those who were desperate due to hunger and deprivation. Early on, there were allegations of corruption and hoarding, and talking to the displaced revealed a common thread: the breaches were due to either poor maintenance or the intent of landlords to save their lands and houses by diverting gushing floodwater towards the lands of poor farmers – just like they did last year.

Even in relief distribution, there was profiling of ‘ours’ and ‘their’ people on political grounds, and reports of minority communities being marginalised also made their way into print. The district government staff was stretched thin as, being local residents, they too had to grapple with inundated houses, lack of supplies, and disease and death in the family and community. Despite this, they were the only ones, other than the army, navy and the marines, who were best placed to know the actual location of the affected persons and had their true-needs assessment data.

It is a pity that the lack of trust in the official machinery exposed many NGOs who didn’t seek government assistance to the risk of duplication of work, or that they were not able to reach those in the far-flung areas that were really needy. Even security issues could be addressed through the government instead of risking the looting of an entire relief convoy going in unaccompanied. But why is there mention of only NGOs

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77 and COs? Where were the international relief agencies? Well, they were all right here, just waiting to come forward, but they could not do so until the Sindh Government finally realised that it was beyond its capacity to deal with the disaster.

The call for help went out three weeks after it had become apparent that the calamity was of disastrous proportions, and that is when UN and other agencies swung into action. The UN and its humanitarian partners asked donors to fund a $357 million rapid response plan to support efforts by the Pakistan government to respond to the needs of those affected by the floods. However, to our horror, we learned that the millions transferred to NDMA’s account during last year’s floods, were still lying unused. Now if that didn’t dent the fundraising appeal made by the PM who, yet again, visited fake relief camps in Badin, what did? No wonder then that one saw groups of friends getting together to take relief supplies rather than entrusting the government to allocate their money efficiently.

But, it must be kept it mind that whoever is helping must be prepared to be there for the long haul. Food, dry ration, clothes, shoes and shelter may have been among the initial needs, especially in the early days when there was no let-up in rain, however, the standing water brings with it its own set of diseases: gastrointestinal problems, malaria, as well as skin and eye ailments are rampant. Safe disposal of the animal carcasses is imperative to minimise the spread of disease. There is an urgent need for the arrangement of clean drinking water and sanitation facilities. Everyone

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78 needs medical cover. Women are giving birth lying out in the open, on the roadside. Inundated fields are denying the dead a decent burial space. And the floodwater isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Saving what they can carry: Pakistani villagers carry their belongings through flood water following heavy monsoon rain at Golarchi town in Badin district, about 200 km east of Karachi, on September 13, 2011. Photo: AFP

Despite the annual allocation of funds, the drains were not desilted causing the water to spill over to adjoining fields that were already being filled by the unprecedented rain. Then there was the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) which has been cited as the biggest culprit due to its design fault, pointed out by environmentalists at the time it was made, though never rectified, which resulted in the back flow of water instead of allowing the water to drain into the sea. But that was just the water that was supposed to have come from upstream and from the smaller drains falling into it.

The case for Badin was even more tragic, as explained by a local wadera. Infrastructure projects, such as roads, were built in a manner that they crisscrossed the district. However, as all the roads were on higher ground, the adjoining fields became low ground bowls from where there was no place for the water to drain out. Even dewatering would simply mean pumping it from one field to the other until the drains are completely empty and the water can be diverted from there. This is likely to take more than a couple of months, which means that the farmers, even if they are

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79 able to go back to their lands, will not be able to till it to prepare it for the next crop, i.e. for another two seasons.

What one must bear in mind is that it isn’t just the hari who suffers in such a situation. The bigger the landlord, the greater his loss. According to one local landlord, he has lost all his investment and lost the once-in-a-year opportunity to see the returns on that investment. He goes on to explain that everything in a rural set up is dependent on the income that comes in at the end of the season: a daughter’s wedding, repair of the house, a new tractor, or anything else. This applies not just to him but also his haris, who still have to be cared for by him.

Without the waiver of taxes and soft loans, there is no way these landowners will be able to get back on their feet, and if they do not, the peasants working on their fields will not be able to do so either. So, the government and the aid-providers need to think and plan beyond the food hampers. They will need to give agricultural inputs like fertilisers and seeds and provide assistance on a long-term basis. What is also imperative is that if there is a next time around, then we need to be better prepared to deal with natural disasters, which must not be exacerbated by man. The changing weather pattern is an indication of climate change, and adaptive measures need to be taken to cope with it through efficient management.

http://www.newslinemagazine.com/2011/10/sindh-floods-2011-history-repeats-itself/

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80 Sana Syed

Learning from our disasters

For Pakistan, the 2011 floods came at a time when the country was already struggling to recover from last year’s floods. This year however, Sindh turned out to be the worst affected province with 22 of its 24 districts flooded. According to a report released by the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA), 8,920,631 people were affected by the floods in Sindh. Of these, 599,224 are still in relief camps all across the province.

Dr. Shershah Syed from the Pakistan Medical Association feels that the floods have highlighted a broader dilemma. “We are facing a humanitarian crisis – it is shocking to see the degree of malnutrition in the children at relief camps,” he says.

Dr. Syed was also involved in coordinating flood relief work last year and thinks that “these people are likely getting better access to healthcare in relief camps than in their own villages.” He further added that this is especially true of Sindh, a predominantly feudal province “where poor debt-ridden farmers toil lands not owned by them.”

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81 Pakistan is included in a list of 20 countries which

contain 80 per cent of the world’s undernourished children. Maternal and child under-nutrition is the underlying cause of 3.5 million annual deaths globally. The major causes of mortality in Pakistan in children less than the age of five years are diarrhea, acute respiratory infections and sepsis, with chronic malnutrition, an important but indirect cause of child mortality.

“With rising numbers of children suffering from diarrhea secondary to unsanitary water and hygiene we need to optimise access to clean drinking water and sanitation services,” says Dr. Zulfiqar Bhutta, Chair of the Division of Maternal and Child Health at the Aga Khan University.

Dr. Bhutta, who has done extensive work on how to best combat malnutrition in developing countries, says that rescue efforts in the these areas needs to be more directed to be as nutritionally optimal as possible.

“There is little realisation that Sindh has the worst rates of maternal and child undernutrition in the country as exemplified by the nutrition surveys undertaken during the floods last year and confirmed by the recently concluded national nutrition survey. The current floods have just compounded a chronic emergency and underscored the importance of large scale preventive strategies.”

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) estimates that nearly three quarters of southern Sindh province crops have been damaged, while two thirds of food stocks have also been hit. Given the scale of the

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82 disaster, it is still a long way before relief or rehabilitation comes to the worst affected. In the meanwhile, what we see are millions of hungry people waiting for two square meals a day.

Given the present situation, we need to look hard and critically at our national and local priorities. Pakistan is not a poor country, it is a nation with poor allocation of resources and recently we have had more than our fair share of bad luck.

With years of meager investment into health and education, two years of flooding has highlighted issues that have been festering for years particularly that of malnutrition. There is no magic bullet to solve the problem of undernutrition nor can we depend upon emergency responses and donor funding to affect change.

Evidence-based interventions can make a difference to short-term outcomes – these interventions include strategies to improve maternal nutrition before and during pregnancy, early and exclusive breastfeeding, and good-quality complementary feeding for infants and young children, with appropriate micronutrient supplementation.

In addition to these nutrition interventions, other health promotion strategies include attention to programs to address unsafe water, inadequate sanitation, and poor hygiene.

We also need long-term investments in the role of women as full and equal citizens—through education, economic, social, and political empowerment. To find

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83 widespread malnutrition in Pakistan in the midst of plenty is a travesty and points to the huge inequities that exist in Pakistan. Responding to this silent emergency should be a national priority and not a knee jerk response to natural disasters.

The writer is in final year of pediatrics residency at Duke University. http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/05/learning-from-our-disasters.html

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84 Zofeen T. Ebrahim

Flood response: Too slow, too little

Still reeling from last year’s catastrophic floods, as the recent cycle of inundation unfolds before the world, a month since angry waters ravaged most of Sindh province, the United Nations and the Pakistani government formally launched an international appeal for US $ 345.9 million

Both the Pakistan government and the international humanitarian organisations have been blamed for tardy response to help urgently needed by eight million affected people. “The problem is huge and I fail to understand why it took the resource-stretched government so long to seek help,” asked Mohammad Khan Samoon, director of Badin Development and Research Organisation, a local non-governmental organisation, working in Badin district.

“When international agencies are involved they first carry out assessments before reports are sent to their headquarters and money released. All this takes time. Precious time could have been saved had we been more prepared with data and provided relief to people in a more systematic manner. Everything is left for the

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85 eleventh hour and thus management is adhoc. We have not learnt anything from last year.” Samoon says, adding that a commission should be set up which should take to task all those who were slumbering while the water levels rose.

Surrounded by waist-high water and rising, many of the 6,000 or so once bustling villages in the district of Badin, in Sindh province, are today ghost towns. Others have been washed out completely by the raging flood waters. Stories of loss, hopelessness, death and disease stalk the residents many of whom have just managed to reach dryland with nothing but the clothes on their back.

Last year, Badin district, which had remained unscathed, had provided refuge to thousands; this year more than 800,000 of its own people have come in the eye of the storm. As the waters refused to ebb, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, appealed for international assistance in a televised address late on Saturday. “International organisations and the world community should focus their attention on the affected people,” Gilani had said.

He has called off his US trip where he was to address the UN General Assembly saying he personally wanted to “supervise ongoing relief efforts in flood-hit areas of Sindh”. In a painful playback of last year, when almost a fifth of Pakistan was ravaged by the deluge which not only affected 21 million people but also crippled the economy of the South Asian nuclear state, this year’s deluge has just affected Sindh.

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86 “The impact of this year’s disaster is far worse than

last year not because of the number of people suffering but because of the sheer impact and devastation on a population severely affected by last year’s mega- flood. Millions hit this year are those who had lost almost everything during last year’s flood and now have literally nothing to live on. People have lost their crops, livestock and homes for a second time around. The resilience of Pakistanis has been pushed over the edge by two floods in a row,” said Mubashir Akram, spokesperson for UK-based charity Oxfam.

“Why suffer second year in a row when the whole world provided crucial assistance to Pakistan and emphasised to improve the disaster coping mechanisms by implementing the modern concepts of disaster risk reduction (DRR)?” he asked. According to Akram, by taking measures detailed in the DRR, all that was required was spending a paltry US 30 million dollars then thus saving billions of dollars in losses now.

The real issue is the exhaustive DRR framework that had been painstakingly developed by experts had not been implemented the way these should have been, he concluded. Sources working in the district government in Badin, requesting anonymity, acknowledged that the relief has come too late, too little and distribution is far from transparent. They say “political favouritsm” remains a hallmark of management and distribution of relief goods. Absolving itself from all blame, Sardar Sarfaraz, director of Pakistan Meteorological Department, in Karachi, said alarm bells had been rung

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87 well in time. “We had given early warning of heavy spells well in time to all stakeholders if only they had heeded.”

Last year the met office had come under severe criticism for not doing its job properly. “That’s not true,” said Sarfaraz, who heads the tropical cyclone warning centre, adding: “We had sent warnings well in advance even last year but were told our language was too technical and could not be translated into damage entailed.” Akram believes the coordination gap between the relevant and disaster/flood related agencies is huge. “If the met office had provided good weather intelligence well before in time, then why were their warnings not paid any attention to? The horizontal and vertical integration between the disaster management authorities must be improved if future disasters need to be tackled efficiently,” he said.

According to the National Disaster Management Authority, 369 people have died, 1.4 million homes affected (of which over 500,000 have been completed destroyed) and some 2 million acres of crops destroyed. Seven of the 23 districts of Sindh have been severely affected and include Badin, Nawabshah, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Umerkot, Tharparkar and Tando Allahyar. The government has set up over 3,000 relief camps for 716, 698 people. But many families are seen camping out on embankments and roadsides under open sky under.

Makeshift huts or tents are seen erected on roadsides as you near Badin city. The place is strewn with their few worldly belongings – an odd cooking utensil, some managed to salvage their rope beds and pedestal

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88 fans too. Buffalos, goats, donkeys and even hens are seen tied to their homes.

While women are busy carrying out some chores or the other, men are usually found doing absolutely nothing, just idling or resting. Usually children are making the most of this free time – swimming in nearby pools of stagnant water oblivious to the dangers of catching some water-borne disease or being bitten by a snake, or making up games from pebbles and twigs.

The vagaries of nature have compounded the woes of the displaced. Already seven thousand people have been bitten by snakes and the standing water is a cauldron for public health issues. The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) said that up to 2.5 million children have been affected by severe monsoon floods with many still recovering from the last year’s floods. “More help must reach them fast before the situation worsens,” it warned.

A survey conducted by the Sindh government last year, with support from Unicef, revealed a grave nutritional crisis among children. With an estimated 90,000 under-five children malnourished, the survey report published in January this year showed a global acute malnutrition (GAM) rate of 23.1 percent in children aged six months to five years old in northern Sindh and 21.2 percent in southern Sindh.

Zofeen T. Ebrahim is a freelance journalist.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/23/flood-response-too-slow-too-little.html

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89 Zulfiqar Halepoto

Devastating monsoon, Faulty drains

The wrong rain forecasts, faulty design of the Left Bank Outfall Drain, the failure of the provincial disaster management authority and the Sindh government to invest in preventive measures, have proved to be disastrous for the people, land and agriculture of the six main agro-based districts of the lower Sindh.

The outcome was obvious. All water streams were overflowed by torrential rains, causing floods. The consistent heavy rains also made the coastal and downstream districts of Badin, Thatta and Tharparkar vulnerable. Badin was declared a calamity-hit area. A large number of villages were cut off from the rest of the country and thousands of people were marooned.

According to official reports and survey of the Sindh Chamber of Agriculture and Sindh Abadgar Board, the continuous heavy downpour led to breaches in the LBOD and canals affecting the Kharif crops of cotton and paddy and washed away standing crops of cotton, rice, chilly, onion, tomato, vegetables and fodder on thousands of acres in lower region of the province.

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90 The losses were enormous estimated at around $10

billion. Over two million people were affected and at least 120,000 forced to vacate their homes. About 30 people lost their lives in the rains while 140 sustained injuries during floods. Some 15 people died in camps due to outbreak of waterborne diseases. Hundreds of mud houses in villages were washed away and the displaced persons were facing severe shortage of safe drinking water, sufficient food and other livelihood items. Large migration was still taking place.

Civil society organisations have expressed serious concern over the lackluster government response to the plight of the rain and flood affected people. Our visit and survey suggested that the recent floods were a manmade disaster that took place due to the failure of the government to repair and reconstruct the faulty drainage projects, which had created havoc in the coastal areas in the previous monsoon rains and floods. The World Bank-funded LBOD has been criticised repeatedly for its faulty design that has caused massive destruction in the past as well, particularly in case of cyclones and floods. This year, breaches developed in the LBOD, the biggest saline Nala of Asia, at several places causing water flow to inundate more than 100 villages.

According to media reports, due to overflowing and reverse flows in the LBOD there is fear of more breaches and flooding in the area. This is not for the first time that the LBOD has affected and displaced the population of Badin. The 1999 cyclone, 2003 and 2006 monsoon rains had also caused overflows and breaches that displaced the population of Badin and adjacent areas causing loss

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91 of lives. Critics have repeatedly pointed out technical faults in the designing of the tidal-link embankments and the Choleri Weir that makes the local communities vulnerable when heavy rainfall and high tides and sea storm coincide in the area.

The faulty drainage network has also badly affected the environment of the Indus Delta, restricting fresh water availability necessary for maintaining the ecological value of the delta, which in turn supports coastal forests and marine life. The maintenance and management of Sim Nala also remained neglected due to corruption and capacity deficits of the Public Works and the Irrigation Departments of the province. The Sim Nalas demand extra care and maintenance since they serve the purpose of draining out effluents that weakens the drainage structures. There have been no serious efforts on the part of the government and the concerned departments to maintain the Nalas over the years.

Media reports indicate that prompt response by the government agencies, during and after the floods, was minimal. District officer (DO) Revenue Badin has admitted to the press that the district government had failed to provide even basic facilities to the DPs. The NDMA claims having distributed ration packets among 2,000 families in Badin, 1,000 in Tando Muhammad Khan, 1,000 in Hyderabad, 500 in Tando Allah Yar and 2,000 in Mirpurkhas. The support is not commensurate to the difficulties faced by the people.

People’s suffering for the second consecutive year reflects state’s failure to learn lessons from the last year’s devastating floods that submerged a large part of

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92 the country. No prior warnings or evacuation efforts preceded the water overflow nor was there any preparedness in terms of relief for communities displaced by floods. The begging bowl approach continues with the government planning the issuance of relief assistance through Watan Cards that remained inadequately supplied during the last floods.

It is the responsibility of the government to immediately adopt measures to restore normal life in flood-affected districts unlike last year when the state did not make adequate efforts to drain out water from the inundated areas in Sindh and it remained submerged for several months after the floods. The government should take quick measures to drain out water and resettle the affected farmers with assistance for shelter and livelihood. Apart from immediate relief measures including supply of clean drinking water, food and healthcare, the state must work on long-term measures for the rehabilitation of the affected people.

Extending social security, asset distribution, right to shelter and livelihood and planned urban and rural development is critical to prevent future manmade disasters such as the recent floods and also to minimise loss of lives and property in case of natural disasters.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/08/22/agriculture-and-technology-devastating-monsoon-faulty-drains.html

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93 Allison Zelkowitz

Caring for Pakistan’s children Every day we must each decide who to help, and who to ignore: the woman on the sidewalk begging for change, a neighbour carrying grocery bags up the apartment stairs, a colleague staying late in the office trying to finish a project. Sometimes we offer money, support, or time, and sometimes we walk by. Sometimes caring seems too hard.

These days, it seems that caring for Pakistan’s children is too hard. Millions of children are homeless, hungry, and sick in lower Sindh, which was devastated by flooding over a month ago. But Pakistan is not on the world’s good side at the moment — Osama Bin Laden was discovered here. Media reports on suicide attacks and terrorist networks abound. Relations between the US and Pakistan have soured. With so much negative news, it’s hard to feel good about helping Pakistan. Our hearts go out to the downtrodden and helpless, not those who are tinged with violence and controversy.

But Pakistan’s children don’t know this. They don’t know that if they had been born in a different country, they might not be going to bed hungry. They don’t know that if they spoke Japanese or Creole, rather than Sindhi,

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94 they might be sleeping in a waterproof tent, rather than under a plastic sack strung between trees. And they don’t know that, if they had survived last year’s floods, rather than this year’s – they might have clean water to drink.

More than two weeks ago, the United Nations launched a $357 million appeal to provide life-saving relief to over 5.4 million people affected by the floods, including 2 million children. Last year, when a $460 million appeal was issued to help victims of the 2010 floods, 64 per cent of this amount was committed by international donors in 18 days. This year, only 14 per cent has been pledged so far.

For aid workers like myself, the ‘humanitarian imperative’ guides our work — this principle avows that it is the duty of the international community to provide humanitarian assistance wherever needed. Our job is to save lives and reduce suffering when disaster strikes. We are trying to do this in flood-ravaged lower Sindh. Both the government and the humanitarian community in Pakistan have provided food, water, shelter, and medical care to hundreds of thousands of people. Save the Children — the organisation I work for — has reached over 240,000 people in less than four weeks. Yet there are still hundreds of communities who have received no support, and aid agencies will run out of funding soon. What, then, for Pakistan’s children?

In some areas of lower Sindh, it will take months for the flood waters to recede. While they wait, those with livestock will sell off their goats and cattle one by one, for ten to 20 per cent of their value, so they can feed

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95 their families. The less fortunate families, those without such assets, will take loans from wealthy landlords, and fall further into debt. Their children will eat once a day, and often only flatbread. They will suffer from skin diseases and diarrhoea, and some will contract malaria. As children become more malnourished, their immune systems will weaken. Soon many will die.

With so much need in the world, we often become deaf to cries for help. But national governments and international donor agencies are not deaf — they read the reports, they know the numbers. And 5.4 million people is no small number — it is more than the populations of Norway, Ireland, and New Zealand. Yet unlike these countries, the 5.4 million people in Pakistan affected by the floods do not have savings accounts or insurance. Right now, most have only make-shift shelters, a few clay pots, and some dirty blankets, and with that they are trying to get by.

Pakistan will likely remain at the forefront of global controversy for some time to come. But its children should not have to pay the price for this. The children in lower Sindh are not militants or politicians. They are like your children — hopeful, genuine, and kind — and they deserve to survive as all children do.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 8th, 2011.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/268918/caring-for-pakistans-children/

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96 Dr. Shaikh Tanveer Ahmed

“Rebuilding of Pakistan”

A story HANDS Relief, Early Recovery & Rehabilitation Activities

Pakistan, a country that is renowned for its fertile lands, rich crops and agricultural diversity, has been ravaged by one of the worst 2010 floods in the history of mankind.

Apart from the death toll of nearly more than 2000 men, women and children, thousands have been injured. Over 20% of the country is submerged under water. Over 1.5 million acres of agricultural lands and crops have been destroyed. Over 20 million people have been rendered homeless. Of these, over 7 million IDPs have been afflicted in 12 Districts of Sindh Province alone.

Health And Nutrition Development Society (HANDS) is registered, Not for profit organization working in social sector since 1979 under the leadership of founder and Chairman Prof. Abdul Gaffar Billoo Sitra-e-Imtiaz. HANDS is providing benefit to more than 13 million population of more than 17000 villages in 24 districts of Pakistan.

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97 HANDS immediately declared emergency in the

organization. The operation was lead by Disaster Management Program who divided the operational area in to three hubs, the northern Sindh hub based in Sukkur, southern hub in Thatta and the Quetta hub. Each was looked after by a hub manager.

HANDS immediately mobilized its 1264 Staff and 10,000 volunteers along with 40 vehicles besides deploying 2 boats in each city i.e Thatta, Kashmore and Jacobabad.

A total of 83163 people were evacuated from the most vulnerable points by the HANDS Teams. HANDS had established more than 500 Relief Camps. We have provided support to more than 35,000 families and 245,000 family members.

HANDS has supplied in relief and More than 35000 tons of ration to families. We also supplied nearly 35000 hygiene kits. The Non Food Items were also supplied to 35000 families. HANDS ensured adequate WATER SUPPLY and toilet Facilities under the most challenging circumstances.

HANDS Health Teams provided health services through more than 3500 medical mobile camps in 13 districts. Fixed Medical Camps were stationed at all Relief Camps in the flood affected areas that have seen 300,000 patients and conducted more than 5000 Health and Hygiene Awareness Sessions. Around 10,000 women were screened for antenatal and post natal care.

The medical team ensured more than 10,000 safe deliveries and provided with Reproductive Health kits comprising of required contraceptives after counseling

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98 session. HANDS under its NARI project provided free of cost services through voucher scheme of Dozens of health facilities from public and private sector. HANDS Education Program has organized more than 350 Temporary Camp Schools where more than 9500 children continue their education in camps. HANDS agriculture and livestock department worked on vaccination, de-worming and provision of fodder for more than 57000 goats, buffalos, and bulls.

By the grace of Allah and from the help of its partners HANDS has raised nearly 01 BILLION Pak Rs that is 10 million US dollars in kinds & cash for the rescue & relief Phase.

HANDS started it’s “Early Recovery Plan” from December 15 to February 15, 2011. The residents of camps start’s moving back to their village as soon as water recedes, through transports provided by HANDS. 35000 families moved back to their homes. Ajab Khatoon and Qaim Din also went back to their village Malhar kolho of tehsil Kandhkot. The scene was shocking for them, everything had been washed away. HANDS staff supported them and assured them for help. Soon the camps were again installed over the debris of their house. Later they were provided with ration and winter kits.

HANDS conducted Rapid Assessment of the most effected villages and UCs, under its rehabilitation plan and selected 16 union councils in 7 districts of Sindh and one district of Baluchistan by the name of TAMEER (The Appropriate Measures For Early Recovery and Early Rehabilitation). HANDS TAMEER strategy is focused on family and village holistic development. We have

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99 estimated the required funds of Rs. 08 billion that is 100 million US $ for next 03 years. The project will transform 1000 villages in to model villages, 14 Union Councils and 50,000 families in building their houses, small businesses, revive live stock, village streets, water channels, roads, hand pumps , drainage, health and education services. Total cost of a family is 211,000 that is in US $ 2482.

Once the village is selected in rapid assessment survey analysis report, HANDS team of Social Organizers’ arrived in the villages to initiate the process of community participation; they gather all the community members and ask the community members to develop a village map on ground that is PRA (Participatory Reflection Analysis).

They explain to the villagers that they should have a Community Based Organization to partner with HANDS. Later they facilitates the community members in forming a CBO. The CBO sign a “Term of Partnership” for better understanding and trust with HANDS District Executive Manager

The Social Mobilization team also conducted training of CBOs. CBO also developed a village development plan. They were explained the working modalities with HANDS. The CBO was facilitated to open a joint account with HANDS to ensure the transparency and Community Participation of TAMEER implementation.

HANDS engineers assessed the village and developed master plan and feasibility. CBO in its meeting identifies the most vulnerable and needy for shelters, Entrepreneur, live stocks and Agri input beneficiaries.

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100 The CBO invites 2 to 3 HANDS accredited suppliers

and asks the quotation for different materials HANDS mobilization and Engineering team on the basis of resolution of Men and women CBOs develop the complete proposal and submitted to HANDS District Manager. Once reviewed and verified by District Office it is then sent to HANDS head office for approval process.

As soon as 1st installment approves from HANDs head office funds retransfer to CBO account.. Payment to contractors takes place after an agreement. Soon model village starts taking shape with the arrival of material for Shelter, live stocks, kits of masons, vetnary workers, carpenters and other entrepreneurs.

HANDS started its rehabilitation plan with building a house for each of the deserving and needy. Each shelter costs Rs. 110, 000 and beneficiary or CBO contribute at least 10% in cash and or in unskilled labor. Shelter is usually of single room, veranda, kitchen, energy efficient stove, and toilet. HANDS also developed, under its Community physical Structure intervention, street pavements, drainage, water boring, hand pump and culverts. We also provide live stocks to those have lost it or in need of it. We have provided tools for different entrepreneur to men and women had their businesses before flood. HANDS offered seeds, fertilizer and tools for poor Haris as well.

HANDS also initiated its health and education Program as per need of the villages. HANDS health promotion program identifies a community based women worker called MARVI Worker for each village. She is then trained in health service delivery. She develops a corner of her house as, Sehat Markaz or

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101 Health House. She obtains health products like safe delivery kits, contraceptives, ORS and Basic medicines from HANDS Sehatmund Social Marketing.

HANDS also identifies practicing Traditional Birth Attendants. MARVI Workers in partnership with TBA takes care of health of Women and Children with the support of the field team. MARVI Worker receives stipend from HANDS and additionally generates income from sale of these products. MARVI Worker also defines the referral strategy of the village so in case of complications women and newborns could be referred to already identified Hospitals under the cover of NARI voucher project. The voucher scheme therefore bear all the out of pocket cost of clients.

HANDS Education Program also assessed the status of Schools. In case of a completely damaged School it provides temporary shelter to continue the education of children. If the engineer’s assessment declares it partially damaged school than the renovation works starts. HANDS under the intervention ensures the mobilization of children, provision of learning material, sports items, furniture, repair of toilets, hand washing facilities and teachers trainings. HANDS education program also focuses on Early Child Hood intervention from zero till 8 year old children. HANDS also offers adult literacy program to illiterate adults of communities and “Life Skills Based Education” for youth in secondary schools.

Alhamdulillah HANDS has invested more than a Billion Rupees in this phase and handed over to owners hundreds of villages, thousands of shelters, entrepreneurs, live stocks and Infrastructure Schemes. Hundreds of MARVI Workers are now delivering primary

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102 health care services back by NARI voucher project for hospital referrals. More than a thousand Primary Schools have already been rehabilitated, thousands of teachers and more than a hundred thousand children are hence mobilized.

But Monsoon comeback again in 2011, Rain flooding started on 8th August affecting 22 out of 23 districts however maximum devastation seen in southern districts including Badin, Tando Allahyar, Tandomuhammad Khan, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas and Umerkot. According to PDMA total 8.1 million people are affected whereas 1.9 million acres crop area is badly damaged. Around 664,258 houses damaged partially and 532,440 houses damaged fully. Total 361 casualties are reported across the province and 679 injuries reported. District Governments in their respective jurisdiction established around 2,938 relief camps accommodating 625,293 IDPs. These heavy rains also perished about 78,457 cattle heads. (Reference: PDMA; Summary of losses, and damages due to rains/flood 2011. Dated 20 September 2011)

HANDS were already prepared on the basis of weather forecast of Meteorological Department, as soon as rain hit Badin relief work Badin office declared as Emergency response center. Soon all the affected Districts offices including Tando Allahyar, Tandomuhammad Khan, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas and Umerkot declared emergency and converted in to emergency response center. HANDS has distributed by November 30th 2011, nearly 80,272 food bags comprised of a month ration for 7 members family, 18539 Tents and Plastic Sheets for temporary shelter, 39425 Non Food Items, 27, 146 patients were treated in medical camps and four Diarrhea Treatment Centers,

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103 150,919 persons were benefitted from health awareness sessions conducted with the help of 15 mobile floats equipped with audio visual facilities. 8.6 million liters of water were distributed among needy persons, 143 toilet facilities provided to these IDPs. Alhumdulillah HANDS has invested Rs. 1.3 Billion in cash & Kind of 2011 disaster from Aug. till November. HANDS is proud to say that during August 2010 to November 2011 more than 3.2 billion Rupees were spent by HANDS on poor communities of more than 1000 villages of Sindh & Balochistan.

The flood was the misery for millions but HANDS converted this calamity in to blessing for thousands. There is long way to see all of them to be joyful like this couple HANDS is yet to achieve target of 1000 model villages.

HANDS require your generous support to continue these efforts, to make it possible our dream to come true: “Healthy, Educated and Prosperous Pakistan”. Millions of Pakistani women, Children and survivors are looking forward to you. Let’s work together to give them a ray of hope.

Dr. Shaikh Tanveer Ahmed is Chief Executive of HANDS

6th August 2010 – 30th November 2011

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104 BZU

Ravages of rain in Sindh

While terror-stricken Karachi is having brief lull from the killing spree of poor and innocent people due to operation, Interior Sindh has been hit hardly by the merciless torrential monsoon rains causing colossal death, destruction and displacement of millions of people. Hardly people have recovered from the shocks of last year flood, the current spell of rain have broken the economic back of people. They have lost crops, livestock, their homes have been destroyed and now they are living under open skies with no one coming to their help.

Lower and Central Sindh is considered as economic backbone of Pakistan. No wonder rain has made humanity and infrastructure suffered but it has also hit economy of Pakistan, specifically Sindh to major extent. According to reports of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) 100 percent seasonal vegetable crop such as onion, tomato, chilies, etc, have been destroyed in addition to the 80 percent of cotton crop in Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Badin, Thatta, Nousheroferz, Nawabshah, Khairpur, Shikarpur, Khandhkot-Kashmore, Larkana and Dadu. Cotton is grown on 1.8 million acres in all the districts of the province.

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105 In addition to wholesale destruction of 70 percent

vegetable, 2.4 million cotton, 50 percent of standing paddy crop worth 1 billion, which is cultivated on around 2 million acres in various part of the Sindh, including Larkana, Shikarpur, Qamber-Shahdadkot, Jacobabad, Kashmore-Kandhkot and Dadu districts has ravaged by the vagaries of rain. Damages and destruction is not confined to vegetables, cotton and paddy but sugarcane has bore the brunt of rain and floods.

According to reports 70 percent of sugarcane, grown on 0.7 million acres in districts of Badin, Tando Mohammad Khan, Tando Allahyar, Matiari, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas and Hyderabad. Rain has caused destruction to orchards which spread over 125 million acres worth. According to agriculture expert, topical rains in Sindh spoiled Rs 256 billion worth of major Kharif crops and vegetables in total. According to some reports 17 districts washed off due to floods. 200,000 acres of cotton, 900,000 aces of paddy and 150,000 acres of sugarcane grew from the rain affected areas of Badin.

Other than that tomatoes and onions were also grew from these areas at 80,000 and silage at 15,000 acres which entirely washed away in ruthless rains. In Badin and Thatta alone, in addition to cotton 80,000 acres of paddy was wiped off. The mourning doesn’t end here, as the worth of these commodities was as follows: cotton Rs. 75,000 per acre, onions and tomatoes 60,000 per acres, silage worth 35,000 per acres, and paddy Rs. 60,000 per acre. Virtually, the aggregate lose account for Rs. 90 billion of vegetables, crops in Umerkot,

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106 Mirpurkhas, Thar, Tando Muhammad Khan, Tando Allahyar and parts of Sanghar region.

Rain and floods have also killed people, destroyed their homes and caused so many water-related diseases. According to reports, so far more than 300 people have killed as a result of roof falling and electrocution. In addition to two million people in rain-flood affected districts have displaced and forced to live either in tents or under open skies without proper hygiene and sanitations conditions resulting into outbreak of epidemics that have aggravated the miseries of the affected people as diarrhea, gastroenteritis, malaria and skin diseases are spreading rapidly. Reports further say 600.000 people have so far been displaced, 400,000 houses have been destroyed, 1600 people have been wiped out from the face of this earth and more than 10,000 domestic cattle, including cows, buffalos, sheep, goats, donkeys and hoses have been killed by lethal rain in the affected districts.

According to experts, the aggravation in the scale of destruction and devastation has been caused by breaches in the LBDO and RBDO due to their faulty designs and negligence on the part of irrigation department by not carrying out the desilting of canals, due to which breaches occurred, inundating the agriculture land and destroying standing vegetable, cotton, sugarcane and paddy crops. The performance of (Provincial Disaster Management Authority) is absolutely miserable to an extent that they are on the verge of begging from UN and international NGO’s on the plight of interior Sindh caused by floods, argued Fayyaz Hussain

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107 Abro President Pakistan International Peace and Human Rights, as quoted in Dawn (September 8). According to government source, in Badin alone 214,940 acres of eminence crops of grains, potatoes, cotton, sugarcane, vegetables etc has been destroyed and 3,710 villages have been flooded.

The question arises if things like these happening then what is the core responsibility of concerned authorities such as NDMA (National Disaster Management Authority) and PDMA (Provisional Disaster Management Authority): either they have to facilitate people or watching as spectator the wholesome destruction of crops and untold human miseries? It seems likes that the responsibilities of NDMA and PDMA have drowned with floods. Government of Sindh has declared 22 districts out of 23 as calamity hit areas and announced relief package of Rs 5 billion for flood-affected people but there is criticism that this amount is just peanut keeping in view the scale of disaster which is bound to induce inflation, price hike which will invariably add fuel to the fire of poverty already caused by IMF programs of structural adjustment.

Sindh has been facing such devastation since long and even last year rained and floods played more havoc. The reason is that people don’t have capacities to protect themselves against natural calamities, for state has not invested much in enhancing the capacities of people so that they can defend themselves against such calamities. According to Amartya Sen, noble laureate in economics, natural calamities hit people when they are denied of their social, economic and political

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108 entitlements such as food, jobs, and access to technology, participation and right to education and Medicare.

If we analyze the situation in interior Sindh in the light of Sen’s entitlement approach, we will find that state has totally failed to empower people and ensure their legal entitlement to the productive assets – education, health faculties and technology. There are no industries and people have no entitlement to land to be distributed judiciously amongst poor peasants. Apart from lack of entitlement, there are other factors contributing to the poverty of people. According to study of Dr. Manzoor Isran, working in SZABIST, structural adjustment programmes are responsible for creating poverty in the rural Sindh. According to him, since Pakistan is signatory to IMF programmes, under which government has been forced to withdraw subsidy from oil, gas, electricity, which have contributed to poverty.

According to him, it is state’s primary responsibility to initiate projects to create employment and thereby alleviate poverty and reduce income inequalities. Pakistan being signatory to IMF programmes is being asked for downsizing, which means laying off people from jobs. Further, IMF programmes restrict state investment in the industry and agriculture. It is one of the factor causing misery and mayhem.

Finally, I would strongly suggest that if government is serious to protect people from the injurious effects of the rains and floods, it has to take following measures.

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109 Investment in the creation of social

infrastructure, that is, health education, health. Investment in industry in rural areas and

thereby create employment. Improvement in governance and elimination of

corruption Land reforms and distribution of land in landless

peasants. Provide youth from rural areas with

microfinance so that they open small and medium business.

I am sure if above cited measure are taken, it certainly it will minimize, if not eliminate poverty, from rural areas.

http://bzupages.com/f137/ravages-rain-sindh-18405/

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110 Shaista Aziz

Picking up the Pieces It’s a year since the worst floods in the history of Pakistan devastated the lives of an estimated 20 million people, most of who were already struggling to feed their families.

Communities in rural Sindh are living in fear of this year’s monsoon rains, terrified the floods will return and sweep away the remaining fragments of their lives. Fragments they’ve been clinging on to since floodwaters swallowed up their homes, livestock and livelihoods.

The UN estimates at least 2.2million hectares of agricultural land were washed away. In total an area the size of the UK was submerged under water for weeks.

According to the District Health Officer in Thatta, Sindh, an estimated 30,000 people were made homeless. At least 8 million people across Sindh were displaced; many forced to find safety and shelter in tented camps where they remained for weeks after the floods, too terrified and traumatised to return to their villages. Schools, roads, shops, mosques were washed away, at least 22 health clinics in the district were badly

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111 damaged to the point of being too unsafe for doctors to work in and treat patients.

The floods have had a catastrophic impact on the health of the population and as always in disasters it’s the weakest and the vulnerable who suffer the most, children, women and the elderly. Sindh is Pakistan’s third largest province and is the country’s ‘breadbasket’. Miles and miles of agricultural land, a patchwork quilt of rice, wheat, cotton, chillies, lined with fruit trees. Yet, despite this, Sindh, has some of the highest rates of malnutrition in Pakistan, highest rates of illiteracy and staggering levels of poverty.

The Government of Pakistan’s National Nutrition Survey, over a decade old, states that national malnutrition rates stands at 13.2 per cent. The 2001 -2002 survey carried out in collaboration with the UN questioned a sample of 786 households across the country concluding global malnutrition rates of 23.1 per cent in northern Sindh and 21.2 per cent in southern Sindh. The UN measures malnutrition as being a critical emergency if it reaches 15 per cent. The levels of malnutrition in Sindh are higher than in some parts of Africa. The Sindh Department of Health has identified critical levels of malnutrition.

A two hour drive from Thatta on a road that has been badly damaged by floods, less road and more rocks, stones and dust, I travel with a group of doctors and a health specialists to a remote village, Sheer Ali Shah. I’m on my way to see a government health clinic that is offering a lifeline to malnourished children and women

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112 in collaboration with international health organisation Merlin providing doctors, health workers and medicines.

The roads make travel difficult in a car as does the intense heat, most people who arrive at the clinic walk for up to an hour to reach the health facility or travel by donkey cart. Imagine being heavily pregnant or very sick and having to travel on the bone-shaking road. The small building housing the clinic is almost bursting with the number of people crammed inside.

The electricity has gone off and the humidity makes it hard to breathe. People are squashed together taking up any space they can find. Women squat in corners using their duppatas to keep flies away from their babies. A health worker looks at his or her books and informs me she has registered over 200 people today, nearly all of those seeking help are women and children. In most cases people have walked over an hour to attend the clinic where their weight is being checked, children’s arms are measured to identify those who are malnourished, women are checked for to see if they are anaemic and vitamin B deficient.

Bachiee Hasib is seven months pregnant with twins, she looks exhausted and it’s hard to believe that her tiny 25-year-old frame is destined to deliver two more babies into the world. She says she walked over and hour to reach the clinic carrying her 32-month-old baby Marvi Hasib. Bachiee tells me she also has four other children. She’s at the health facility to get iron supplements, as she is weak due to a lack of food at home.

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113 Marvi is receiving treatment in the clinic. “When

she first arrived she was severely malnourished, she was crying a lot and her eyes had sunk into her face. After two weeks of treatment she is now classified as moderately malnourished. We are happy with the progress she is making”, says a health worker.

As the doctor sees to Marvi, more and more women and children are arriving at the clinic and it’s becoming harder to hear Bachiee over wailing children. “When the floods came last year we lost everything. We had to rebuild our home again using mud to patch up the old house and we survived due to Allah’s mercy. I was so scared and held on to my children. We escaped with our lives. We are poor; we can’t access hospitals, as we don’t have the money for transport. I eat roti every day, I sometimes eat it with onion but mostly with crushed chillies. I feed my children the same.”

Dr Ijaz Habib, a nutrition specialist with Merlin, has seen the impact of the floods on people’s health: “People are hoping and praying the monsoon will show mercy on them this year as they are still picking up the pieces of their lives. What happened last year was like nothing anyone has seen before.”

Shaista Aziz is a freelance journalist.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/07/18/picking-up-the-pieces.html

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114 Farooq Tirmizi

LBOD: The culprit behind recurring floods in Sindh? Did poor design of an internationally-funded drainage system really exacerbate the devastation from the floods in Badin or is it simply a convenient excuse to blame ‘arrogant’ foreigners for a natural calamity?

A review by The Express Tribune of technical

documents prepared by the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank about the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) project reveals that while the international lenders may indeed share some of the blame for the damages, much of the damage may have been caused by natural topography, the politics of Partition, and negligence on the part of the government.

The LBOD has been blamed by civil society groups since the 1990s for altering the drainage and water flow patterns in lower Sindh – specifically Badin and Thatta – and worsening the flooding in those two districts. Yet the matter is somewhat more complicated. The LBOD, for instance, has brought about massive benefits for middle Sindh, especially Nawabshah, Sanghar and Mirpurkhas, and has allowed nearly half a million hectares to be

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115 brought back under cultivation that had been abandoned due to water-logging and salinity.

Correcting flaws in the Sukkur Barrage

The Sukkur Barrage – the largest in the world – is often considered an engineering wonder by most Pakistanis. Yet many seem unaware that its associated canal system has a serious design flaw: because nearly all of the canals are earthen, rather than lined with concrete, they cause the water table in the areas they irrigate to rise, eventually rendering them so waterlogged as to be uncultivable.

This problem was initially left completely unchecked, and for the first three decades, farmers would frequently create makeshift drains to drain out the excess saline water back into the canals, exacerbating the problem in the process.

In the 1960s, the government decided to create a more permanent solution to the water-logging/salinity problem. A 100-mile spinal drain was built in the 1970s in middle Sindh, but suffered from a political flaw: part of the water was drained into the Shakoor Dhand, a body of water that Pakistan shares with India.

In the early 1980s, therefore, the government began exploring other options for drainage, especially focusing on stretching the spinal drain out to sea.

Construction on the LBOD began in 1985 and was completed only in 2002, about nine years behind schedule. The project was initially meant to cost about $654 million, but ran 47% over cost, eventually costing $963 million. It

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116 was partially financed by a consortium of eight international lenders, including the World Bank and the ADB, though most of the cost was borne by the government.

One weak link

The problem with the LBOD is not the entirety of the drain but rather one specific portion of it, known as the Tidal Link, which connects the drain to the sea. The drain suffers from several design flaws which cause it to start spilling water into the neighbouring region rather than taking it out to sea, a problem acknowledged by both the World Bank and the ADB.

The original design of the LBOD anticipated this problem and created what was known as the Cholri Weir, to prevent the water from leaking into and damaging the surrounding area, most of which consists of dhands – small bodies of water that grow in size depending on the rainfall level.

The problem, however, is that the Cholri Weir was destroyed in 1999 by a cyclone and the government decided – for reasons that now appear flawed – not to repair it, a decision supported by the international lenders. In normal years, the absence of the Cholri Weir is not a substantial problem, since the water still flows out to sea. However, any rainfall that exceeds 125 mm over a 24-hour period renders the Tidal Link useless, even harmful.

During heavy rains, the dhands themselves swell to several times their normal size and, coupled with the excess flow of water leaking from Link, contribute to the flooding in Badin district, usually one of the worst hit areas of Sindh in any flood.

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117 The degree to which the design flaw contributes to the

flooding, however, remains a matter disputed between civil society groups and international financial institutions.

Another of the design flaws is that the Tidal Link flows against the natural drainage patterns of the region, though this cannot really be fixed: following the natural drainage would lead the link to flow into India, an arrangement New Delhi is unlikely to agree to.

Concrete solutions

Neither the World Bank nor the Asian Development Bank offer any solutions – at least not directly.

Most NGOs protesting the LBOD complain the global lenders violated their own rules for engaging the community before the construction of the drain (a problem that the ADB and the World Bank acknowledged in nearly every report), yet seem to ignore the fact that the drain was needed in the first place.

The solution, it appears, is likely to be an expensive one: lining the canals with concrete. The World Bank’s assessment of the programme, conducted in 2006, stated that had the Cholri Weir been a concrete structure rather than mud-built, it would have withstood the storms that frequently hit the district.

It is unclear if the government has the will, or the money, to implement such a solution.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30th, 2011.

http://tribune.com.pk/story/263570/lbod-the-culprit-behind-recurring-floods-in-sindh/

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118 Jamil Junejo

Revisiting the LBOD issue WITH the recent monsoon experience, the question of whether the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) is the primary cause of flooding in lower Sindh districts has resurfaced.

Originally, the drain was designed to channel

excessive irrigation water during floods and the runoff of waterlogged lands in Shaheed Benazirabad (formally Nawabshah), Sanghar and Mirpurkhas districts into the Arabian Sea at Zero Point in Badin district. The project, funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank (WB), was additionally meant to carry industrial and municipal effluent from urban centres.

However, due to numerous gaps in the design, operational, technical and monitoring dimensions, the drain has in fact been causing heavy damage from time to time. The sufferers include human populations, biodiversity and crops, especially when the lower Sindh area is hit by cyclones and heavy rains.

The LBOD has been serving as a ready channel for seawater to flow upward and encroach upon Sindh’s ecologically important and fertile areas. This was

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119 observed in the wake of the 1999 cyclone, when encroaching seawater caused severe damage. The cyclone hit the 41-kilometre tidal link canal of the LBOD, which split open in 65 places and caused massive losses in Badin. The scale of the tragedy is underlined by the fact that 355 bodies of children and adults were pulled out of the mud.

Faulty design was traced as the major reason behind the tidal link’s weakness. Badin’s coastal community believes that had the LBOD not existed, cyclone-related losses could have been minimised by up to 80 per cent. Similar havoc linked to the LBOD was wreaked in Badin during the floods of 2003. The drain swelled beyond its capacity which resulted in breaches and overflows.

After surveying the damage, the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum reported: “More than 32 people were killed, 50,000 acres of standing crops were damaged, more than 100,000 people were displaced for three months, about 12,000 fishermen lost their single source of livelihood, and more than 10,000 acres of land [were] encroached [upon] by seawater during the rains and floods in 2003.”

In the recent floods, the existence of the drain has had a similar impact. Damage was inflicted on communities and arable lands in not just Badin but also Shaheed Benazirabad, Sanghar and Mirpurkhas. The first area, however, bore the brunt of the fury. A report prepared jointly by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation and Pakistan’s Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission (Suparco) blames the LBOD for the destruction brought on Tando

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120 Mohammad Khan, Badin and Mirpurkhas districts. The gravity of the damage, and its geographical limits, has been wider this time.

The LBOD project should never have been pursued in the first place. Neither the design nor the implantation plan was feasible or participatory. Indeed, they lacked both wisdom and farsightedness. While the project proponents and implementers were focusing on the LBOD as a tool in drainage, they failed to consider it as a possible threat.

The project was riddled with violations of not just various national and international laws but also the ADB and WB safeguard policies on involuntarily resettlement. The issues of preservation of climate and the protection of lakes were not considered, and the public was kept unaware of the project’s potential impact. Breaches in the LBOD and its tidal link have resulted in the degradation of a large area of land by contaminating the groundwater with salt. This has resulted in depriving a large number of people of potable water. The United Nations General Assembly declared the right to water as a basic right in 2010; the forum has proclaimed the 2005-2015 period as the international decade for action for ‘Water for Life’.

The degradation of cultivable land and the resultant contraction of livelihood opportunities have deprived a large number of people of their right to food ensured in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 19 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ratified by Pakistan in 2008, recognises freedom from hunger as a fundamental right.

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121 With regard to biodiversity, the extinction of fish species as a result of the LBOD could be held to violate the UN Convention on Biodiversity, signed and ratified by Pakistan in 1994.

Efficient functioning of the LBOD required social and political oversight. These were absent during the project’s design and implementation stages. Despite several initiatives by groups and individuals such as the ‘save the coast’ committee in Badin and an anti-LBOD movement, the project was pushed through. Had these initiatives been taken before or during the project’s implementation, work could have been halted.

Interested parties filed a complaint in the World Bank’s Inspection Panel on Sept 9, 2004. After investigation, the panel justified the allegation levelled by the anti-LBOD movement and submitted its finding to the WB’s board of directors in mid-2006. In response, the bank management provided an action plan to the board which was approved on Oct 31, 2006.

Unfortunately, the plan failed to correspond with the major recommendations of the anti-LBOD movement. Instead of taking genuine and result-oriented measures, the bank made foul use of the losses. It gave financial assistance in the form of grants to some NGOs through the Pakistan Poverty Alleviation Fund. These funds were meant to implement various activities to compensate those affected by the LBOD. Subsequently, the anti-LBOD movement weakened and ultimately became dysfunctional.

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122 In view of the damage wrought during the recent

floods, it is time the movement mustered up its strength again. Before renewing the campaign, it should revisit its previous demands in relation to the present context. The priority list must be topped by the demand to decommission the LBOD. First, its low capacity can’t withstand pressure. Secondly, it has been weakened by poor maintenance. If it is not decommissioned, it will continue to bring disaster.

The writer works with the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum and was associated with the Manila-based NGO on ADB Forum.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/06/revisiting-the-lbod-issue.html

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123 Farooq Abbasi

The lessons we never learn

Almost a year from now, I remember browsing through images of the Pakistan flood victims as I sat alone in the night shift at work. I saw the hopelessness in the faces of the victims, and today I see similar expressions on this year’s flood affectees as a video plays in front of me on the television screen – a troubling reminder of government negligence perhaps?

The 2010 floods were obviously the first of its kind in Pakistan and took every one by surprise. It’s a shame that a year later we haven’t learnt at all and a large number of people are affected again. According to various government officials, this year at least 270 people have died in Sindh, 5.3 million people and 1.2 million homes have been affected and 1.7 million acres of crops have been destroyed.

In a recent television interview with Dawn News the Pakistan Meteorological Department (PMD)’s Director Dr Muhammad Hanif confessed negligence in issuing a warning last year, however he said an early warning was issued for the floods to all the stake holders this year. So the question is why didn’t the responsible authorities take preventive measures?

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124 The following image appeared in the Daily Dawn

paper. As you can see the major impact of the torrential rain was on the Sindh province. The severely affected cities, this year include Badin, Nawabshah, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, Umerkot, Tharparkar and Tando Allahyar.

Looking at the comparison it is interesting to note that the areas that somehow were spared last year from the devastation are now the most affected areas by the rain-triggered-floods. The severe rains caused an overflow in the Tarbela and Mangla dams as the water level exceeded the capacity of the dams. More than a year after the 2010 calamity, over 800,000 families remained without permanent shelter, according to aid group Oxfam, and more than a million people needed food assistance.

Pakistan being an agrarian society relied most on the crops that were damaged. About 2.7 million cotton bales worth Rs.3.5 billion were destroyed during recent flash floods in Sindh province as about 23 cotton growing districts of the province were badly affected due to torrential rains.

According to the Cotton Development Commissioner, Khalid Abdullah cotton (the cash crop of Pakistan) was grown in 23 districts across the province. Out of these cotton growing districts in the province, seven districts produced 80 per cent of the total crop production and about 74 per cent of the total output was damaged due to recent flash floods in the province, he added.

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125 Preventive measures/Long term planning?

The DG ISPR Maj Gen Athar Abbas was questioned in a talk show that why isn’t there a long term planning for dealing with the floods as each year the army seems to be caught up in the relief efforts. His reply was that the responsible authorities should take measures and not the army. So, who are the responsible authorities? The government, the NDMA, the district management?

When Mr. Yousuf Talpur MNA of Pakistan People’s Party from Tharparkar was asked about having received any warning for the rains he acknowledged that this year the warning was received but they were not able to prepare for the rains/floods as it had exceeded their expectations and termed it a “natural calamity” that could not have been avoided.

However, he did blame the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) for not having provided post-flood relief. The NDMA chairman, however, offered a statement claiming that the supply chain was affected because the workers were on leave on account of the Eid-ul-Fitar- holidays during the first spell of rains. It seems as if the blame game never ends and instead of making a collective effort the authorities start pointing fingers at each other.

I remember reading a news article that said Global warming was responsible for the Sindh flood, well if it is responsible for the flood then what are we going to do about it collectively and individually?

The Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) issued a flood guideline on their website. How

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126 many people affected by the floods would have read the guidelines? Do the people living in undeveloped areas even have internet access per say? Each year in Bangladesh around 18 per cent of the country is flooded, killing over 5,000 people and destroying 7 million homes.

Bangladesh has learnt to effectively reduce the damage caused by the floods by investing in infrastructure that can sustain the floods. Perhaps the “responsible” authorities in Pakistan may want to look at Bangladesh as an example that has dealt with its recurring flood crisis.

Hypothetically speaking, if the floods occur next year, will we be ready to deal with them or will we wait for the floods to have hit us and then scratch our heads thinking what needs to be done? Will the stakeholders accept the floods as a natural calamity and just become bystanders while more destruction takes place?

The writer is a Multi-media Content Producer at Dawn.com

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/15/the-lessons-we-never-learn.html

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127 Zofeen T. Ebrahim

Flood Relief by Caste, Creed

With just the clothes on their backs, Moora Sanafdhano, 68, and his family of nine waded through waist-deep flood waters swirling through their village of Allah Ditto Leghari, saving themselves in the nick of time.

“We heard that the water rose up to nine feet,” says Sanafdhano, as the others nod in agreement. But, the lives of these mostly low-caste Hindus, considered the most marginalised group in Pakistan, are far from being out of danger.

They are being turned out of makeshift camps set up in schools, and relief material sent to them hijacked by people who know that low-caste Hindus are so abject that they would not dare retaliate. Sanafdhano’s village is about 80 to 90 km from Badin town in Sindh province, and about 200 km from the provincial capital and port city of Karachi. It is populated predominantly by low-caste Hindus – officially known as scheduled castes – such as Kohlis, Meghwars, Jogis and the Bheels, most of whom are sharecroppers for wealthy Muslim landlords.

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128 The system of land tenure is so heavily weighted in

favour of the landlords that these poor farmers and their families are as good as bonded labour. Sanafdhano says he owes his landlord about Pakistani rupees 50,000 (570 dollars) and is helpless in the face of a catastrophe such as the present floods. “I’d grown rice on five acres of land and the standing paddy is all but gone,” says Sanafdhano. Estimates by the Sindh-Balochistan Rice Mills Association say the floods have damaged 20 – 25 percent of paddy crops in Sindh.

According to Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Authority a severe drought followed by abnormally heavy monsoon rains in August and September have severely affected seven of Sindh province’s 23 districts and disrupted life in 11 more. The death toll now stands at 342 with some 1.2 million homes and 1.7 million acres of arable land destroyed.

The worst affected district of Badin has a population of 1.8 million people of whom 1.6 million have directly been affected by the floods. About 20 percent of the affected are low-caste Hindus. Pakistan has three million Hindus and 2.5 million of them are from the scheduled castes, the upper castes having fled to India after the 1947 partition when British India was carved up along religious lines.

Some 6,000 villages in Badin have been wiped out by the floods and according to National Assembly speaker, Fehmida Mirza, who belongs to the area, there is no high ground left to set up rescue camps.

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129 Officials deny that the Hindus are being

discriminated against in the matter of relief. “Catastrophes see no caste, creed or religion,” says Dadlo Zuhrani, deputy district officer in Badin. “Relief activities are area specific, not community specific, and I protest against charges that we are discriminating against certain communities.”

But on the ground, for people like Sanafdhano, relief from the government and from aid agencies have passed them by. Unwritten caste rules prevent relief from reaching those who need it most. “Those from the Hindu faith will never drink from the same well or vessel. They will also never eat from the same plate,” says Jewat Ram, a local schoolteacher. “Hindu masons may build a mosque, but never enter it, and Muslims who attend a Hindu wedding will not partake of food there. This is accepted, though the practice is slowly changing.”

But, Ram saw something in the camps which left him disturbed. “The school I teach in has been turned into a camp for the flood-affected people, but when three Hindu families from the Kohli caste sought refuge there, they were denied it. “When the Kohli families insisted on staying, one of the men from the displaced Muslim community began contemptuously urinating in full view of the Kohli women and they had little choice but to leave,” said Ram.

“They treat dogs better than they treat us human beings,” said Ram in anger and helplessness. Moolchand Sakromal, a Hindu government official who tried to give refuge to the Kohlis, says low-caste Hindus are probably the “most neglected” of Pakistan’s minorities. “It’s a

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130 double whammy for them – they are poor and then they belong to the scheduled caste,” says Vikio Rajwani, a Hindu and head master at the government primary school.

The district administration in Badin has set up 278 camps in public schools and other government buildings, providing relief to 81,000 displaced people, but nothing has been assigned for the Hindus. Most of the displaced people from the scheduled castes are camping wherever they can on the roadside in makeshift tents, fending for themselves. Even charities have shown a preference for giving handouts to displaced Muslims, rather than Hindus.

Donations of material made to Hindus do not reach them. A week ago the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), a non-governmental organisation, sent two truckloads of relief goods for 200 Hindu families in a camp set up in Golarchi (another town in Badin district), but it was hijacked by Muslims.

“When the truck reached our compound, some 20 armed men surrounded the trucks and began looting. Soon the police came and the PFF men were told by the police superintendent to leave,” said Shanker Das, a Hindu lawyer, who was present.

“Protests were made to the district coordination officer but even he couldn’t do much. All he did was to call up his deputy and order him to send rations, but in the end they were told point blank that there was nothing for them.”

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131 Jabbar Habibiani, a politician associated with the

newly formed Awami Jamhoori Party, says there is massive corruption in the distribution of relief with political affiliation given priority over actual need. Officials deny widespread charges of inefficiency. “It is impossible to satisfy a man with a week’s rations for his family when he has lost his life’s savings; we are doing our best but our resources are limited,” said administrator Zuhrani.

In the midst of such chaos, the low-caste Hindu communities remain invisible. They have no representation in the local government. Even their votes are cast on their behalf by their landlords.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/22/flood-relief-by-caste-creed.html

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132 Raza Rumi

Disasters, dengue and local government

In the past few weeks, the intractable crisis of governance has once again exposed the dysfunctional nature of the Pakistani state, and its inability to grapple with basic issues of citizenship. After all, the guaranteeing of people’s rights and entitlements is the responsibility of the state, which it simply cannot abdicate.

In Sindh, 5.3 million people have been affected by

flash floods, out of which 250,000 are now homeless.

The floods had been predicted earlier but the provincial

and federal authorities were shamefully ill-prepared like

last year. In Punjab, over 5,000 people are battling

against the dengue epidemic and there are indications

that it may spread to other parts of the country.

The killings in Karachi have momentarily halted but

as hundreds of citizens were butchered for no fault of

their own, the politicians indulged in a macabre game of

accusing each other of breaking up Pakistan. Pity that the

discourse on Karachi came down to Zulfiqar Mirza versus

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133 the MQM and seldom did anyone debate the

fundamental causes of ethnic conflict, social breakdown

and the governance vacuum. The killings have been

followed by the inundation of the megalopolis by heavy

rains. The civic failures of Karachi and Lahore on drainage

and public health have exposed how cities cannot

function without effective, accountable local

governments.

In the aftermath of last year’s deadly floods, several

reports (including one authored by this writer as part of

a multi-sectoral team) had highlighted that

strengthening local governance arrangements ought to

be an urgent provincial priority.

In Sindh, the system of local government has been a

subject of ethnic chauvinism and when the Sindh Local

Government Ordinance was partially restored, the Sindhi

nationalists called a strike across the province. In Punjab,

several drafts for a new law to replace the 2001

Ordinance have been drawn up but have been held back

in various ‘committees’. In Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa a

similar situation exists.

The net effect of collapsed local administration is

that we can neither manage disasters nor fight

epidemics. In Sindh, not unlike last year, the

preparations and resources at the local level were

inadequate. The UN has warned that parts of Sindh are

likely to remain flooded for at least six months; and so,

would centralised agencies be able to handle the post-

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134 disaster early recovery phase? The performance of

national and provincial disaster management authorities

remains unsatisfactory. Perhaps the Sindh government

would have to amend its position on local government

and think of change next year. Similarly, governing

Karachi and Hyderabad will require urban councils and

inclusive modes of governance.

In Punjab, dengue is not going to go away soon.

Experts have stated that the next year’s outbreak could

be far more serious. Public health is not about

centralised directives but the ability of the state to cater

to health needs of the community and install sanitation

systems, which prevent the outbreak of diseases and

epidemics. An overreliance on the bureaucracy has failed

to deliver civic services. Similarly, the capacity of large

hospitals has been badly exposed as dengue cases have

piled up in Lahore.

Public investment in health is skewed: most of the

funds are spent on large hospitals which focus on

‘curative’ health services. Preventive or primary health

services remain neglected and in a city like Lahore, the

absence of local government means no public

accountability. This is bad in itself because it means that

the unreliable delivery of essential services is likely to

remain so.

The political parties must not forget that their

neglect of governance, especially at the local level, is

only going to further disillusion many Pakistanis with

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135 regards to the efficacy of democracy and constitutional

governance. It can be safely said that neither GHQ nor

any external power is stopping the PPP, ANP and the

PML-N from effecting a local government system or from

paying attention to police reform. After three-and-a-half

years of rule, political parties have no Musharraf to

blame. Perhaps, Pakistan’s ubiquitous electronic media

also needs to show a little more responsibility in

facilitating an issue-based discourse and not sell

theatrical antics and brainless pressers.

The writer is consulting editor, The Friday Times http://tribune.com.pk/story/253034/disasters-dengue-and-local-government/

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136 Syed R. Ali

Disaster and the lost cause

It has been a year now since the devastating 2010 floods ravaged Pakistan. The slow moving Tsunami devoured the landscape as though it were a biblical plague straight out of Cecil B. DeMille’s film “The Ten Commandments”. Unfortunately this was no film and the tragedy that unfolded was all too real.

The United Nations report on the floods released in March 2011 describes the disaster as having been on an “unprecedented scale”. The floods itself started after heavy rainfall caused flash floods in the north and north-west of the region. The intense rain in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa amalgamated flood peaks in the Swat River. The flood waters reached the Arabian Sea after having travelled downstream through the barrages in Punjab and Sindh. The situation was further exasperated by breaches in canals and embankments, particularly in Sindh, along with water being diverted to prevent flooding in urban areas.

The Government of Pakistan estimated that nearly 2000 people were killed while 20 million others were affected by the floods. The economy of the country suffered an astronomical $43 billion. Livestock and agriculture, the very backbone of the workers of the land

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137 was completely decimated. The floods killed nearly 200,000 livestock and washed away stored food that would have fed millions. After such a traumatic experience and when people finally came to grasp with the scale of the event, the public wanted to know who, if anyone, was responsible for it all.

The Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary took suo moto notice and ordered an inquiry into allegations that flood waters had been diverted by influential political figures including MNA’s to prevent damage to their personal property. This was done after prominent figures including lawyer Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim and then-MNA Marvi Memon wrote letters or filed petitions in the Supreme Court to look into the matter.

The Supreme Court constituted the Flood Inquiry Commission on December 15 2010 which was headed by Muhammad Azam Khan and included A.W Kazi, Zaheer Ahmed and Fateh Khan Khajjak. When the commission did present its findings to the Apex Court, unsurprisingly, it was found out that mass corruption within the Irrigation Departments of Balochistan and Sindh was responsible for the havoc.

The report said that embankments in the country were not properly maintained and Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) had not been properly followed through. The report stated that illegal encroachments along the banks of the rivers had been given tacit approval by the relevant authorities and had been allowed to thrive. The report further stated that the

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138 provincial governments encouraged illegal encroachments.

Massive corruption within the provincial hierarchy and downright criminal negligence was a major contribution to the calamity that hit Pakistan last year. But will we learn anything from these revelations? In our country there never seems to a serious study from lessons of the past. One other natural calamity that comes to mind in our history was the Bhola cyclone in 1970 in East Pakistan. The cyclone killed over 300,000 people, and was widely regarded as a catalyst for the rise in Bengali nationalism that severed the country in 1971.

In that incident the majority population of the country broke away from the minority, the first and only time in history to have happened. The poor response by the military authorities in that incident alienated an already angry Bengali populace.

The army however did not repeat its mistake in the East Pakistan debacle and in fact lead from the front during the rescue operations in the floods, which boosted their image amongst the populace. In stark contrast, the response by the civilian government did not inspire many people, but damaged their already abysmal image.

Thankfully the death toll in the 2010 floods was not on the same level as Cyclone Bhola, but has raised questions as to whether anyone will be held accountable or not. Based on past experiences, it’s highly unlikely. There is no culture for holding people accountable for crimes in this country. An annual US State Department

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139 report that came out earlier this year said that there was a ‘culture of impunity’ in Pakistan, in which people are never taken to task for crimes committed.

It’s still too early to tell the long term impact of the floods on Pakistan. The pessimist would say that say that we are already a gone case, beyond redemption and help. The optimist on the other hand would rebuke that and say that the floods washed away the old Pakistan and will give birth to a new one.

The culture of impunity which has plagued Pakistan for so long needs to be discarded once and for all. We can no longer afford to limp along towards the future.

Those that bear responsibility for the criminal negligence that affected the floods have to be punished. We must not send a message to future generations that the people that abetted such a tragedy in our country were never held accountable, but got away scot-free. We have received that message too often from the past.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/07/28/disaster-and-the-lost-cause.html

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140 Nasir Ali Panhwar

Devastating Badin deluge

WHILE the memories of devastating 2010 floods are still fresh, another deluge has hit a number of southern districts of Sindh. People have lost their lives, thousands have become homeless, cattle have died, and standing crops have perished. Thousands of people are still stranded and efforts are under way to rescue them.

Though, temporary camps have been set up in Badin and other areas to provide food, shelter and relief to the destitute, a number of deaths have been reported due to outbreak of viral and waterborne diseases. Badin, being the worst affected district, is prone to rain related damages that are attributed to breaches and overtopping of water in saline water drains developed under the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) project.

Thatta and Badin are two major disaster prone districts. Cyclones, heavy rainfalls, droughts and floods follow each other often in quick succession. The intervening respite is normally short lived. Badin has witnessed series of disasters in last couple of years such as, floods in 1995, cyclone in May 1999 and an earthquake in January 2001 and again floods in 2003.

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141 The painful memories of desolation caused by these

calamities were still fresh, when the locals had to face another calamity in the form of worst rains. In Badin alone, more than 1,000 fish farms with fish and seedlings worth millions of rupees have been washed away by heavy rains.

The poor have less or no assets, and their livelihood is dependent on natural resources—land, water, crops, fish, tress, fruits and vegetables. All these assets have been destroyed due to floods, rendering the poor more vulnerable to natural calamities.

Badin district is a major producer of oil and gas and has a number of sugar factories. But it is ironic that the district that produces oil is itself extremely poor. Rich natural resources and poverty co-exist in this part of the country.

The Tidal Link of LBOD constructed at a cost of Rs785 million despite the objections of the local communities on its design, has resulted in degradation of lands and increase in poverty in Badin and Thatta districts. The construction of this link was opposed vehemently by locals.

Their objections were based on the unnatural design of the sub-project, which was going to choke the natural flow of drainage in the area. The local communities were proved right. The banks of the newly constructed Tidal Link were washed away by floods in the same year, resulting in inundation of the fertile lands with toxic drainage water.

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142 In September 2006, the World Bank’s inspection

panel acknowledged that the WB-funded Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD), the Tidal Link and the Cholri Wier contained design faults and their construction had led to sea intrusion and badly affected the ecology and livelihood of people in Thatta, Badin and southern Sindh.

The independent panel to ensure accountability in the World Bank operations also conceded that the Indus Basin Irrigation System (IBIS) had also led to increased salinity in the underground water. As a result, the quality of land and drinking water had deteriorated.

Increased salinity, it said, had affected large tracts of agricultural lands and the Tidal Link failure had severely harmed the local ecosystem, wildlife and fisheries, upon which many people depend for their livelihoods. People in these areas were also faced with serious problems of drinking water, besides having lost their meadows.

It emerged in the investigation that the WB had itself ignored its own operating policies and procedures in funding the programme that also included completion of the LBOD as part of its pipeline of investments. The panel found that the designers had not evaluated the likelihood that under certain meteorological conditions, high surface water run-off from upstream areas could coincide with high water levels in the sea. The design assumption also failed during the July 2003 rainfall.

Disaster relief is a readymade answer to all predictable and unpredictable disasters. This has, however, not helped the local communities significantly in the recent past. Even though Badin is prone to

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143 recurring disasters, no preparedness has been made by the government. A disaster risk reduction strategy must be developed by designing appropriate structural measures and devising need based, non-structural measures to reduce the risk of disasters. Structural measures relate to engineering and technological answers to the problem, while non-structural measures are directed towards socio-economic concerns and development of the communities that are frequently at risk.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/05/agriculture-and-technology-devastating-badin-deluge.html

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144 Shaista Aziz

The unwanted

Beads of sweat trickle down Havi Ameen’s face as she sits silently observing what’s going around her. The 22 year old is heavily pregnant but it’s hard to tell because her belly is so small. She shifts her dupatta to cover her stomach as women and children swirl around her.

When Havi starts talking she becomes animated and uses her hands a lot, her eyes dance around the room as she explains her points forcefully. It’s as if she’s been waiting for a long time to speak, waiting a long time for someone to listen to what she has to say. “We women loose sleep when we hear we are pregnant. We should be happy, but we know the reality of having a baby, we have to do everything by ourselves,” says Mavi.

I am in a remote village in Bassrio Jat To in Misri Baran, an hour away from Thatta, Sindh, visiting the only medical clinic in the area for miles and miles. The clinic is run by international health organisation Merlin in response to the 2010 floods in Pakistan. Before the floods people in the area had not seen a doctor for years, unable to afford transport to travel to Thatta for healthcare. The clinic is heaving with women and

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145 children seeking treatment for malnutrition and health check ups. On average 200 patients a day attend the clinic. Almost all are women and children. The atmosphere is intense and the air heavy as more and more people arrive squeezing in to any space they can find in the clinic. Mavi is keen to tell me more about her life

“I gave birth to 10 children but only seven survived. I am eight months pregnant. I am weak from being pregnant. We are uneducated people, we feel this a lot. We don’t have any way of making a proper living, of sending our children to school. My husband says so what if we are poor, if Allah provides us with children, Allah will provide us with food for them too. I’m tired of having children and if I had my way I wouldn’t have anymore.” Women around Mavi nod in sympathy and tell her they understand how she feels.

Women in rural Sindh have little control over their lives. Due to poverty families prefer to marry their daughters off once they hit puberty, the crude reality is a married daughter is one less mouth to feed. Dr Asmat, Merlin’s Country Health Director says early marriage and multiple pregnancies are taking a heavy toll on women’s health. “Women face complex health problems. The health issues are interlinked with a lack of access women have to education, employment, basic human rights and freedom. As a doctor I approach health issues holistically. I’m working to put in place interventions that will have an immediate impact on improving women’s health and lives.”

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146 Merlin in collaboration with district health

authorities is implementing an integrated health and nutrition program with a focus on setting up Reproductive Health services to address nutrition and health needs of mothers and women. The organisation has prioritised focusing on antenatal and natal healthcare and improving the skills of birth attendants so they know how to deliver babies safely.

Family planning programmes have been rolled out across Pakistan for many years in the Punjab and even in KPK. Women openly discuss the issues with their husbands and the women in the family. This is not the case in Sindh. Dr Sakeena Jaffri is a gynaecologist but now works with Merlin as a nutrition specialist. “On average a woman will give birth to seven children. Not all the children survive, some may die in the womb, and others are born stillborn,” she says.

“The women are weak, they don’t have enough food to eat and their bodies are unable to cope. I think in order for things to change women need education. When I talk to women they are eager to learn about how to improve their health and the health of their family,” she adds.

The women trust Dr Jaffri, they tap her on the shoulder trying to get her attention, and others wait quietly to talk to her. “A woman will wake up at 6am and have a cup of tea and then head off to the fields where they work for hours and hours. They return home and walk to collect water. They carry the water back and then they return to the field and work for the rest of the day. In the evening they may eat one roti with potato or

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147 chilli or lentils. The women will eat after they have fed their husband and children. This is the reality of many women’s lives here,” she explained.

Literacy levels are low in rural communities and it’s very rare for a village to have a school. A group of women surround me and talk passionately about their desire for their children to attend school and have a better life than the one their parents have provided for them. I’m struck by the anger in their voices “Our lives will only change if we have a school in our village.

We want more for our children than what we have. Our condition will only change through education,” says one woman.

Shaista Aziz is a freelance journalist.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/08/03/the-unwanted.html

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148 Mohammad Tahir Hasnain

What Costs More: Preventing Disaster or Rebuilding

Natural disasters pose a growing threat to the development strategies of the country by destroying infrastructure and productive capacity, interrupting economic activity, and creating irreversible changes in the natural resource base. With increasing frequency, the country is facing situations in which scarce resources that were earmarked for development projects have to be diverted to relief and reconstruction following disasters, thus setting back economic growth.

Disasters directly impact on the foreign exchange earnings capacity of the country, at a time when extra resources are needed to finance imports of food, energy, and inputs for the agricultural and manufacturing sectors. If sustainable development is to be achieved in the country, we will have to take effective measures to reduce their vulnerability to natural disasters.

Disasters also lead to loss of precious human lives where its impact on vulnerable members of the society is obvious. During disasters, it is women and the children who tend to suffer the most – both in the immediate disaster as well as aftermath. According to a source, 85 percent of persons displaced by the recent floods were women and children. The dislocation caused by the flood

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149 could be particularly upsetting for women in Pakistan’s traditionally conservative rural areas. As the floodwaters rise, women are at acute risk from starvation, exposure, sexual assault, and water-borne diseases. However, providing them with assistance is more difficult than these basic facts suggest. Reports points out that in traditional Pakistani society, it is taboo for women to receive aid or medical care from male relief workers, preventing many of them from seeking such aid in the first place. This particularly applies to pregnant women entrapped by the flood.

Recent devastating floods in Pakistan may foreshadow extreme weather to come as a result of global warming. The effect of global warming is changing weather patterns and is causing weather-related disasters such as floods. These climate changes appear to have serious adverse impacts on human and animal life and are the cause of great concern.

What causes Climate Change? Climate changes result from both natural and anthropogenic factors. Terrestrial and extraterrestrial factors contribute to climate change. Extensive deforestation of large surface areas of the earth has resulted in significant changes in the water and radiation balance of the planet. Other apparent adverse anthropogenic impacts on climate include land-originating pollution due to increases in urbanization and industrialization; increases in the use of fossil fuels; and extensive use of agrochemicals.

Human losses and destruction caused by disasters are avoidable tragedies and their impact can be limited through comprehensive Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR)

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150 measures across all sectors. DRR is a systematic approach to identifying, assessing and reducing the risks of disaster. It aims to reduce socio-economic vulnerabilities to disaster as well as dealing with the environmental and other hazards that trigger them. DRR is very wide-ranging and its scope is much broader and deeper than conventional emergency management. There is potential for DRR initiatives in just about every sector of development and humanitarian work.

Investing in DRR not only minimizes losses but also supports the achievement of Millennium Development Goals. For example, DRR promotes health and education by protecting public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals, poverty reduction by protecting economic activities and assets, and gender equality by empowering women to play an active role in risk reduction initiatives. Recovery from disaster provides the opportunity to rebuild better and avoid repetition of mistakes.

Regarding combating strategies for Floods, although little can be done to mitigate the adverse effects of natural climate change factors BUT much can be done to control the additional stress through climate change adaptation and reducing the risks through some policy and physical measures. A number of practical flood combating strategies can be proposed which obviously relate to saving the environment and contributing in household level food security. For instance:

Climate Adaptation: This means the capacity and potential for humans to adapt to the Climate Change. Examples of adaptation include defending against floods through better flood defences, and changing patterns of

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151 land use like avoiding more vulnerable areas for housing. Adaptation to global warming and climate change is a response to climate change that seeks to reduce the vulnerability of natural and human systems to climate change effects. Climate change adaptation is especially important in Pakistan since our country is among those ones who are predicted to bear the brunt of the effects of climate change.

Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Management at Provincial level: Mainstreaming Disaster Risk Management into Development Policy, Planning, and Implementation is very crucial. Mainstreaming disaster risk management into development practice requires all institutions at all levels and from all sectors to clarify and play their roles and responsibilities. Mainstreaming should result in better anticipation of short- and long-term impacts and help people prepare for events that require trained personnel and safe, resilient ‘lifeline infrastructure’ for disaster victims. Mainstreaming promotes the preparation and application of information, assessments, guidelines and awareness of disaster risk. Government, financial, national and local implementing agencies must factor into their programs the measures needed to reduce disaster risks.

Strengthening Community-based Approaches to Disaster Risk Management: Preventive measures for reducing disaster risk are very effective when they are set off through participation at all levels, from the local community through the provincial government to the national, regional and international level. Community-based Disaster Risk Management (CDRM) emerged as an

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152 alternative during the last two decades. Over time, it has become apparent that top-down approaches fail to address the needs of vulnerable communities, often ignoring local capacities and resources. A top-down approach can increase vulnerability and undermine project improvements in quality of life, security and resilience. The CDRM approach emphasizes the active involvement of communities in all phases of disaster risk management. The aim is to reduce vulnerabilities and to increase the capacities of vulnerable groups to prevent or minimize loss and damage to life, property, livelihoods and the environment, and to minimize human suffering and hasten recovery.

Strengthening Role and Response of Stakeholders during Disaster: Everyone, including common citizens, has a responsibility to understand the effects of a natural hazard and respond to assessments, predictions, and warnings. Thus, one of the most important aspects of disaster management and planning is education. Not everyone can be expected to completely understand everything about a potential natural disaster. Therefore, one of the most important links between all involved is effective communication between various groups of people. The key stakeholders who need to play their coherent role and response are Scientists and Engineers; Public Officials; and the Citizens.

Strengthening Role of Women: Lastly, for sustained risk mitigation, it is strongly recommended that an active role of women must be ensured by empowering women to play their active role in DRR initiatives.

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153 Following points suggest usefulness of role of

women in DRR and possible actions in this regard:

Land rights allow women to increase agricultural production, thus reducing vulnerability of women headed households to disaster risk.

Equal access to property rights allows women, as primary users, to manage natural resources in a sustainable manner.

Political representation allows women to ensure that access to water is a priority in local decision making.

Improved women’s participation in decision-making processes and productive activities should specifically include awareness on disaster risks, preparedness and preventive measures that reinforce traditional coping measures undertaken by women and increase disaster resilience of communities.

Research on the degree to which women suffer the negative impact of disasters could be undertaken, to better understand and address their specific vulnerabilities and needs.

______________________________ Tahir Hasnain is Coordinator-P&D at Society for Conservation and Protection of Environment (SCOPE) in Karachi. Working since 1992 in the development sector, he has extensive experience regarding research based advocacy and management on issues related to sustainable development and Environment. He can be contacted at tahir@scope.org.pk.

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154 Mohammad Hussain Khan

Rains 2011: Failure of disaster management

ONCE again the disaster management in Sindh has failed to prevent the devastation of farmland and crops in the lower region of the province, triggered by the recent monsoon rains.

Failure of disaster management

The failure of the provincial Disaster Management Authority’s (PDMA) contingency plan indicates that either it is still in the formative phase or apparently no lesson has been learnt from the last summer floods when seven districts on the right bank of River Indus in upper Sindh were badly affected. The conventional approach of relief officials and concerned departments during the relief operation in Tando Mohammad Khan, Badin, Mirpurkhas and Thatta played havoc with crops and people in the area.

During the recent monsoon, villages were inundated and katcha houses washed away. The marooned people came out of their submerged villages to take refuge on roadsides. Many landed in the so-called relief camps that

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155 offered almost nothing. After a couple of days boats were made available in some areas by law enforcing agencies to rescue the stranded people.

The rains in mid-August have submerged standing cotton, paddy and vegetable crops causing colossal losses to farmers.

During last year’s floods, people did get some time to move to safer areas as floodwaters headed gradually towards their lands and houses. The villagers suffered most in those areas where breaches occurred and the gushing water washed away everything. But the recent rains in the lower Sindh region, which continued for three days unabated, inundated settlements overnight. Three to four feet of accumulated water made mobility of rural people and livestock difficult.

“We are under full control of the situation and are not seeking assistance from the UN, its partner organisation, for succour,” says PDMA Director-General Pir Bux Jamali, but concedes, “the PDMA will have to review its contingency plan as the disaster caused by breaches in the LBOD in Badin and Mirpurkhas is a new phenomenon.” “We work as an advisory body and coordinate between different departments. If we intervene directly there will be overlapping of work. The DCOs are there who respond to disaster first,” he remarks.

“We have submitted a requisition for funds for capital assets to Sindh government to deal with structural and non-structural requirements. We are open

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156 to suggestions in our scheme of things after we get a nod from the Sindh chief minister,” says Jamali.

The district administrations have their own axe to grind when it comes to disaster mitigation. According to the DCO of a rain-hit district even tents have not yet been provided by the PDMA that were promised by the prime minister. How are we supposed to manage things when we are ourselves bogged down? The villages are located wide apart. You need to understand the topography and geography of the area as well. There are no water supply schemes. Health facilities are generally not available even in normal times so these disasters make our people more vulnerable. Relief camps are generally not in good shape which multiplies the miseries of the survivors,” he adds.

According to Jamali, DDMA will have to be formed at the UC and taluka levels where information is to be shared first before responding to problem effectively with the availability of resources. “There are no issues of coordination at all, we are working in collaboration with the Rangers, police and other agencies,” he says.

National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) chairman Zafar Qadir stresses the need to strengthen the PDMA and DDMAs in Sindh. “There are structural issues faced by the PDMA and DDMAs in the province. Sindh makes an annual allocation of Rs140 million for emergency situations, less than allocations made by Balochistan (Rs3 billion) and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (Rs1 billion) for this purpose,” says Qadir. He says that he requested the Sindh finance minister to raise the allocations but to no avail. Then there is issue of dual

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157 intervention by two departments – PDMA and Relief Commissioner – in Sindh which also affects the working because the nature of work is same but approaches are different, Qadir added. “Resources are to be made available to the PDMA which needs volunteers to work in disaster area after professional training,” he says.

The people in relief camps, on the other hand, confront serious health and civic issues. Supply of cooked food remains irregular. Women especially those expecting and the newborns face great risk of infection in absence of health cover. The rural population, even otherwise, doesn’t have access to quality health facility. Disaster on a such scale makes them more vulnerable as mobile medical teams only offer symptomatic treatment.

Every district has its own disaster and vulnerability profile and dimension like flash floods, riverine floods, breaches, rains and cyclone. Absence of proper drainage system, brackish subsoil water, equipments for dewatering, prolonged power outage are some irritants that affect relief/rescue work. Resource availability is something very important to mobilise machinery and staff to shift the marooned population. The government has also not been able to rehabilitate the destroyed infrastructure and displaced people in last year’s flash floods. The global warming and abnormal weather conditions, forecast by environment experts, indicate continuation of such cycle of heavy rains for next couple of years. With the threats of flood in future, the PDMA and DDMA need to be strengthened. Conventional bureaucratic thinking needs to change.

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158 Damage Crops

GROWERS in Sindh are having a hard time again. The farmers on the left bank of Indus in lower Sindh region have been hit by a spell of heavy rains that have washed away a significant part of standing crops of paddy, cotton, fodder, chilly and vegetables. The downpour that started on August 11 continued for three days without any break, resulting in an emergency situation in Mirpurkhas, Badin and Tando Mohammad Khan districts. Mithi — the headquarter of desert district of Tharparkar — received record rainfall of 438mm and the coastal district of Badin 321mm.

The area hit by downpour is known for cotton production. Farmers had extensively sown cotton here during this Kharif as they had received good price of the produce last year.

Visits to the fields indicate that cotton crop is still in good condition in rain-affected districts. However, the rain water that has accumulated in the fields cannot be drained out for at least two weeks. Only well to do growers will be able to drain out water from their fields and save their crop. The small and poor growers risk losing some of their harvest. The standing rainwater could destroy cotton plant with weak roots. Paddy is grown on the left bank districts of Thatta, Badin and Tando Mohammad Khan. Fodder and vegetables particularly onion and tomato nurseries have suffered badly by rains. Sugarcane has also submerged but it is hoped the crop will survive. However, cotton is the worst hit.

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159 Farmers believe that rainwater drains – neglected by

SIDA and irrigation department since long — are in bad shape. As their banks were not maintained, water overflowed at several places, inundated crop fields and devastated agricultural lands. A series of network of big or small drains in lower Sindh, according to farmers, are the major cause of devastations to crops.

Rain-hit cotton farmers say that they were expecting a fairly good crop this season. They had spent Rs83,000 per acre on cotton cultivation, where as on paddy they had incurred a cost of Rs55,000 per acre. Sindh Abadgar Board (SAB) president Majeed Nizamani says that paddy is grown on 900,000 acres in lower Sindh, cotton on 1.2-1.3 million acres and vegetables on 60,000 acres. “Of them, I can say confidently, vegetables have suffered 100 per cent loss, cotton above 70 per cent and paddy 65 to 70 per cent” in the worst areas. He fears that disease will hit the remaining crop if the government does not take immediate initiative.

“Our initial estimates are that all these crops have suffered badly and the accumulated loss is of Rs44 billion,” he says. According to Nadeem Qamar, president of Sindh Chamber of Agriculture (SCA), the un-maintained drains had caused more damages than the rains. “These drains fall into saline water drain LBOD and ultimately fall into the sea through another system. But the LBOD — built by Wapda — has a faulty design. It works in the reverse direction during high tide in the sea and causes damage to lands,” he claims.

“Irrigation department has failed to even run its canal system so no one expects it to maintain its

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160 rainwater drainage system in rural areas. Losses to cotton, vegetable and fodder are enormous,” he claims. Farmers usually give cuts to different canals or rainwater drains to divert water from their fields to save their lands from accumulated water. The irrigation authorities say that they had closed canals ahead of rains thus saving their canal system.

Reducing flows in largest canals like the Nara and Rohri of Sukkur barrage all of a sudden is a difficult task and risk of breaches could not be ruled out in such cases, they say. Mushtaq Nizamani, a grower of paddy and cotton in Badin and Tando Mohammad Khan districts, says he has lost his paddy crop on 800 acres and believes that only five to six per cent may be harvested that too when water recedes. He is of the view that since the irrigation officials closed the canals’ regulators, water disposed of by farmers into them by their lands did not flow downstream.

Five talukas of Mirpurkhas district are badly hit by rains and so are the crops of cotton, chilly and vegetables. According to Mirpurkhas chapter SCA Mir Zafarullah Talpur not rains alone, growers are also responsible for the damages. “Farmers have encroached British-era escape routes of water. In this case water takes its own course at the cost of our lands,” he says while mentioning that crops in Jhuddo, Kot Ghulam Mohammad and Tando Jan Mohammad of Mirpurkhas have been washed away.

The pressure in LBOD is increasing and it is flowing with 15,000 to 16,000 cusecs against its designed capacity of 4000 cusecs, increasing risks to Badin district

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161 where it has to cross through before ending in the sea. Irrigation officials are worried over the increasing pressure in the drain and hope that drain water will pass safely to the sea without causing further devastations. The recent rains have inundated many villages in Badin and Tando Mohammad Khan and the marooned peasants have landed in relief camps. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani visited the areas last Monday and ordered assessment of damages. He assured the Sindh government of federal help for rehabilitating drains in the area to avoid such losses in future.

Controlling reverse saline water flows:-

During his recent visit to the rain-hit districts, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani assured the Sindh government of the centre’s help in controlling the Left Bank Outfall Drain reverse saline water flows. The PM was briefed on the impact of monsoon on the LBOD that often leads to serious damage to human settlement and crops in the coastal district of Badin and Mirpurkhas. Locals and officials say the drain gets backward flow of water due to the LBOD’s design defect.

A new strategy will be evolved by the provincial irrigation department in consultation with the local community and elected representatives to tackle the LBOD problem. According to Sindh Irrigation Secretary Khalid Hyder Memon, the strategy document would be submitted to the federal government soon so that work is started before next monsoon season. “We plan to identify the old and natural routes of water that flows into the sea,” he says. On the other hand, a visit by

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162 Wadpa officials’ team to different locations of the LBOD revealed that it needed proper maintenance from Naukot (Mirpurkhas district) downstream. “It is a case of deferred maintenance. When we visited the drain it was flowing with 6,000-7000 cusecs discharge against its designed discharge of 4,600 cusecs. It is not being managed properly,” a Wapda official said.

Wapda built the LBOD to save the lands of left bank districts of Badin, Nawabshah, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar and Thatta from water-logging and salinity by disposing of brackish water to the sea. After its completion in late 90s, it was handed over to the Sindh government in 2000. Since then the provincial irrigation department is responsible for its maintenance and has been pointing to its defective design. The blame game goes on without any remedy. In this blame game, people sufferer. The disaster has dealt a severe blow to the rural economy. Secretary irrigation insists that it is not the maintenance but the design of the drain that is the problem. “When the design is faulty, maintenance will not serve any purpose,” he says.

According to member water Wapda Raghib Shah, a study was conducted by Wapda on the request of Sindh government after the devastating rains in Badin in 2003. The study was given to the Sindh government in February 2010. “Now it is pending with the Sindh government,” he says and points out that a joint study was also done by PM’s team and the Sindh government a couple of years back. “Findings of the joint study indicated that an expenditure of Rs9 billion was needed to rehabilitate the drain (LBOD) system. This again is

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163 pending with Sindh,” he says. One of the proposals submitted to Wapda was that embankments of the drain could be raised to increase its capacity and carry around 9,000 cusec of water besides additional amount of rainfall.

The position of Sida which controls the LBOD and other drains is that Wapda just forwarded report of its consultants Nespak (National Engineering Services of Pakistan) to it without actually authenticating it. “There were around eight solutions to the problem submitted by Wapda to it mentioning that everyone was workable without specifying the option to be preferred,” Managing Director of Sida Ehsan Leghari says.

Sida is carrying out a study on drainage system’s master plan separately through foreign consultants. It will be completed by early 2013. Consultations with stakeholders are under way as part of this four phase study that would focus on the LBOD too. The LBOD system has a capacity of 4,600 cusec of water with a provision of certain amount of rainfall runoff. According to a Wapda official it can cater to 75mm of rainfall. However, changing weather patterns have upset such engineering estimates. Weather experts are warning of climate change for quite some time, advising everyone to adopt to changing conditions to avoid disasters.

The LBOD, also known as spinal drain, gets bifurcated into Kadhan Pateji Outfall Drain (KPOD) and Dhoro Puran Outfall Drain (DPOD). The DPOD disposes 2000 cusec of water into Shakoor Lake, 80 per cent of which is located in Indian territory and 20 per cent in Pakistani territory. Remaining 2,600 cusec goes to sea

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164 [Shah Samando creek] through KPOD tidal link. The Sindh Irrigation Secretary points out that Wapda can build dams but canal infrastructure or drains are different ballgame.

He disagrees with Wapda member water that the LBOD can take 75mm rainfall runoff. “The LBOD can hardly take 50mm of rainfall. Wapda didn’t keep in mind that they are building drain in coastal region where rainfall can be as high as 400mm to 500mm at times,” he says. According to a Badin farmer, Haji Nawaz Memon, the LBOD needs some modification in its designs to respond to high tides that are seen every month when the sea doesn’t accept drain water. “The depth of drain at tidal link location needs to be modified. Besides its northern embankments that face settled areas, are to be refurbished,” he proposes. He admits that drain is necessary for flushing out rainwater as Badin is a low lying area.

Current monsoon rains have once again spelt disaster in Badin, Tando Mohammad Khan and Mirpurkhas districts, causing serious damage to cotton, paddy, sugarcane, vegetables crops and fodders besides affecting two million people. Thousands have landed in so-called relief camps to wait for food and health facilities. Livestock is another sector that gets a harsh treatment by Nature. Badin is the home constituency of Speaker National Assembly Dr Fahmida Mirza. She says that Sindh government would take elected representatives and local community on board when it prepares a LBOD brief for presentation to PM. “It requires federal government’s intervention because

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165 without its assistance Sindh will not be able to handle the LBOD problem. It needs billions of rupees and the allocations in the provincial budget are just peanuts,” she tells this correspondent.

She, however, made it clear that people and elected representatives of Badin would not agree to any study conducted by any agency that did not consult the local community and its representatives for resolving the LBDO issue once and for all.

Millions consume polluted water in flood-hit areas:-

As the world observes World Water Day today, millions of people in most flood-affected cities and towns of the province are forced to use underground brackish water because flood has rendered water supply system non-functional. This year the day`s theme is `Water for cities: responding to the urban challenge” and its objective is to focus international attention on impact of rapid growth in urban population, industrialisation, uncertainties caused by climate change, conflicts and natural disasters and their impacts on urban water systems.

The theme looks more relevant as one looks at the situation in the nine cities worst hit by last year`s flash floods. Govern- ment functionaries face a serious challenge to meet water needs of the population of these cities where floods have washed away 77 per cent of 451 water supply schemes. Of the 451 schemes, 65 are in Dadu, 24 in Ghotki, 69 in Jacobabad, 57 in Kashmore, 8 in Qambar-Shahdadkot, 21 in Shikarpur, 20 in Larkana, 58 in Thatta and 69 are in Jamshoro,

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166 according to a study conducted by the Drip and Reclamation Institution of Pakistan (DRIP), which works under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

In-charge of DRIP`s office in Tandojam, Mohammad Khan Mari, said that DRIP study carried out between December 2010 and January 2011 found that a water supply scheme, especially in rural areas, catered to need of 10,000 to 20,000 people and in urban settlement it reached 50,000 to 100,000 people. The schemes which were completely uprooted would have to be rebuilt and the remaining however could be made functional, said the study. According to a relatively old study referred to date by experts, 85 per cent of underground water in Sindh has turned brackish or saline.

Sweet water can be found only in 15 per cent area close to the river or located near old river course on the Indus` left bank. Scarcity of sweet water, according to experts, is called `confined aquifer` which recharges with rains and floods. Usage of water in agriculture sector contributes only two per cent to recharging aquifers. In Sindh water table has dropped drastically due to excessive application of tube-well system, posing a serious threat to shallow water that may turn brackish if it is not recharged regularly with rains or floods. Besides, river flows have not been adequate over the years.

“Sindh`s water table has improved after floods and it has come up to 12 to 13 foot. Before floods, it had sunk down to 30 to 35 foot,” said Mr Mari. He warned that once this sweet water became saline then it would remain saline or brackish and referred to the area around Thatta-Sujawal bridge where, he said, seawater

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167 had seeped to a depth of 30 foot. “We will not be able to have any vegetation when the sea water will completely affect the area`s land,” Mari remarked.

That was the reason, he said, the demand was made that 10MAF water should be released downstream Kotri barrage in order to repulse seawater intrusion and recharge aquifers. Environmental expert Naseer Memon believes that 60 per cent of cultivable land in Sindh had been hit by twin menace of water-logging and salinity. About 80 per cent groundwater in Sindh was brackish, which rendered it unfit for human consumption and at times for agricultural use too, he said. Safe drinking water is a sub-indicator of millennium development goal (MDG) No-7 that pertains to environmental sustainability.

According to Memon, the country may miss this vital target which calls for provision of safe drinking water to 93 per cent of people by 2015 and government claims that 65% of population has already access to safe drinking water. Water issue is attaining increasing significance in local and international relations. Whether it is inter-provincial discord or dispute between India and Pakistan water is the core issue.

Besides, there are worrying reports that next world war will be fought over water and the fear has perturbed peace activists in Pakistan and India. Therefore, they seek solution to all contentious issues between the tow neighbours.

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168 Rain-hit Sindh villagers suffer from negligence: -

Sitting on a borrowed cot under the open sky on the side of a link road that terminates in his village, the elderly Bheeko Kohli describes how he has gone hungry for the past three days. Crying, he points to a small quantity of wheat lying on the ground that is now too wet to be consumed.

Behind him lies a cotton crop that is rotting in floodwaters in Ghulam Rasool Shah Jillani village of Tando Allahyar district. Bheeko is a farm worker, but not all landowners have helped their workers financially during this time. As in other natural disasters, many of the rural poor have been left to fend for themselves. Their fragile homes, made of thatched straw, have collapsed. Escaping to higher ground, living under the open sky or braving the conditions of crowded relief camps — if they can reach them — are their only option.

The cattle they cherish, the source of their livelihood, are without shelter too and vulnerable to theft, lack of fodder and to disease because of the unavailability of medication. According to the National Disaster Management Authority, 4.9 million people have been affected by this summer’s rains in 22 districts of Sindh. Last year, it was flooding along the right bank of the Indus that resulted in displacement of millions of people and massive losses to the agricultural sector.

The damage from this year’s monsoon has been mainly in left-bank districts where no contingency plan seems to have been in place. The situation has been worsening with each passing moment because rainfall

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169 has been continuing unabated, in some areas for 48 hours. “It’s chaos,” says Dr Irfan Gul Magsi, a former provincial minister from Tando Allahyar. “People are quarrelling among themselves to divert water from their lands to others. The government is missing from the scene while the rains are devastating everything.”

The Left Bank Outfall Drain and other drains branching out from the Indus are flowing to their full capacity and in some areas are overflowing. The provincial irrigation authorities have simply been unable to cope with them. “It is beyond our capacity to control the situation,” admits a senior official of the Sindh Irrigation and Drainage Authority. “We have asked district administrations to evacuate people located around surface and saline water drains.”

Locals also blame the authority for failing to clear the LBOD and other drains of weeds and silt over the years. With water overflowing from them at various locations, roads connecting towns and cities are under water. It is hard to differentiate between roads and the riverine plains along them, which have begun to resemble marshes. Travelling towards Mirpurkhas, Tando Allahyar or Badin, the scene on both sides of the road resembles last year’s devastating floods. Large swathes of land, mostly agricultural, are submerged.

In Tando Allahyar, a relatively fertile district, lush green fields of cotton, paddy, vegetables and fodder have been washed away. Sugarcane has a greater chance of survival, but if water remains stagnant in fields canes will start to rot. Evidence of this can already been seen in the roots, which have started turning black.

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170 This year, Sindh was set to have a bumper crop of

cotton. Acreage had increased because farmers had been receiving a relatively high price for their yields. But according to the province’s agriculture department, 55 per cent of its cultivated area is now submerged and Sindh stands to lose about two million bales of cotton.

The aftermath of downpours has also exposed the claims of the NDMA and Provincial Disaster Management Authority of being prepared for disaster mitigation. “Look at this, even a donkey will refuse to eat it, how can we consume it?” asks a peasant woman, Shama, holding wheat grains in her palm. “We need tents for shelter due to the incessant rains,” she adds. Notwithstanding these organisations’ claims that they have provided relief, the affected population is facing a serious shortage of food and tents despite forecasts of heavy rain.

Improvised tents pitched by the population dot the scene in rain-affected districts. Furious rain victims are blocking railway crossings and main roads, demanding relief goods and lambasting revenue officials for denying them tents. “They have provided tents to influential people who have even kept their livestock in them while the same are being denied to us because we are poor and have no influence,” says Farooque Brohi, a daily-wage earner at a juice shop that has been shut down because of the rains.

Farooque’s colony in Mirpurkhas district’s Digri city is under three to four feet of rainwater. “How can we live in this polluted environment with the threat of mosquitoes? Other people may have uninterrupted power supply systems, but we don’t. It’s very difficult for

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171 us to live in our home.” Conditions in relief camps are not much better. Around 2,000 people are housed in one camp located at the Government Degree College in Tando Jan Mohammad in Mirpurkhas. Livestock, women, children and cooking facilities share single rooms, and ration is almost finished.

Women have delivered babies without health facilities or drugs. There are no doctors, but at least four pregnant women need prenatal check-up, and lack of privacy has left them in an uncomfortable position. “My daughter gave birth to a boy five days ago after we reached this camp. The baby needs powdered milk until his mother starts feeding him, but it is not available,” one depressed grandmother explains.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/08/29/agriculture-and-technology-controlling-reverse-saline-water-flows.html

http://www.dawn.com/2011/08/22/agriculture-and-technology-rains-damage-crops.html

http://www.dawn.com/2011/03/22/millions-consume-polluted-water-in-flood-hit-areas.html

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/09/rain-hit-sindh-villagers-suffer-from-negligence.html

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/05/agriculture-and-technology-failure-of-disaster-management.html

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172 Mohammad Hussain Khan

Devastation of Monsoon 2011

The recent monsoon rains have played havoc with the lives of the poor peasants of Sindh compelling them to abandon their hearth and home and take refuge in relief camps.

Plight of Poor Peasants

A middle-aged peasant Lagasht Meghwar in a relief camp of Matiari district’s Katchi community says: “We arrived at this camp from Tando Jan Mohammad after having been uprooted by heavy monsoon rains, with no other option left with us. We hope to return to our native village soon after the situation improves.”

Till then, he said, his family would have to remain dependent on relief provided to it for survival. Many peasants like Meghwar have ended up in so-called relief camps which offer virtually nothing. Others had to move to different districts after their villages were inundated and their livestock, the source of their livelihood, lost in the deluge. Loss of cattle on the eve of Eidul Azha is a huge financial loss for them.

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173 Whatever animals have been left with them are

dying of diseases, they say. Their children remain without clothes exposed to vagaries of weather and prone to waterborne diseases and infections. These ‘haris’ are also facing risk of malaria and dengue fever under the open sky and shabby camps amidst accumulated filthy rainwater.

This marginalised community is more vulnerable in the present situation; even otherwise poor peasants do not have access to health or civic facilities. It was the same peasantry which was uprooted by super floods last year. A large population was affected as flashfloods which inundated whole of the riverine area on both sides of River Indus besides devastating settled areas of seven right bank districts.

These peasants, at that time too, had ended up in relief camps. Those belonging to non-Muslim communities like Kohli, Bheel and Meghwar had complained of discrimination. Many farm workers’ families — hit by last year’s floods – didn’t have computerised national identity cards (CNICs). They could not claim monetary help of Rs20,000 given by federal government through Watan Cards. The government plans to issue Pakistan Card to rain-affected people again. But the issue of non-availability of CNIC is still there.

Farm workers say that they work for their landlords on crop-sharing formula. Under this formula, the landowner hands over specified acre(s) of his land to different families of peasants for cultivation of crops. The ‘haris’ take care of the crops till their maturity. They

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174 share the expenses of inputs including seed, fertiliser and pesticides.

“We pay cost of tractor used for ploughing lands while the landowners pay land tax and water charges,” says Meghwar. He had cultivated nine out of 76 acres of Mir Naseer Khan Talpur’s farmlands in Tando Jan Mohammad of Mirpurkhas district on crop-sharing basis. But rains made him suffer heavy losses. He had cultivated tomato, cotton and chilly on three acres each of the nine acres. “We will not get a single penny this time. Still we have to share the cost of cultivation expenses. Landowner will not forego it,” he says.

Meghwar is not the only one; many others would have to share the same fate. According to Ali Asghar Kalhoro, he lost crops on 18 acres. He had grown sugarcane on 15 acres, rice on two acres and cotton on one acre in village Haji Manthar Kalhoro, Matiari. “I think we would have got Rs200,000 out of cane’s per acre yield,” he says. His house has also suffered major damage due to rains. He says he will not earn anything. “We spent Rs50,000 per acre on cane cultivation. Our landowner is not supporting us as he himself is in financial trouble,” he says.

The landowners have suffered enormous losses in cotton, rice and sugarcane, the major kharif crops, due to heavy rains. But given their financial position they will still be in a position to sustain losses as compared to their tenants. Only a few landlords will come forward to offer monetary support to their peasants. These are testing time for farm workers.

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175 A progressive farmer, Nadeem Shah of Matiari,

claims that landowners like him keep all records of their peasants. Each peasant is responsible for per acre yield out of the land given to him for cultivation. “We make additional payment to peasant women for harvest of crops like cotton. This payment is not to be adjusted towards expenses of crop as it is an incentive for farm workers,” he says. But, he argues, landowners have sustained huge losses too. Lands remain submerged under four to five feet of rainwater in most of the affected districts that produce wheat.

The saline water and rainwater drains are flowing at full capacity making the process of de-watering of lands difficult. The government has not made arrangements to drain out rainwater from agricultural lands. As long as water is standing in the fields, prospects of wheat sowing in this Rabi area remain murkier. Many families of peasants may miss Rabi crop cultivation.

Hard times for cane growers

A significant drop in sugarcane sowing is feared this season as vast cane-producing areas remain inundated in rainwater. Much of the cane cultivation takes place between August and October. While directive has been issued by President Asif Ali Zardari to the relevant authorities to drain out rainwater from farms, very little effort is seen yet on the ground.

The crop is mostly grown in Badin, Tando Mohammad Khan, Tando Allahyar, Thatta, Mirpurkhas and Matiari districts in lower Sindh. These areas were submerged by rainwater during the recent heavy

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176 monsoon. The effort of abadgars to drain out water through saline water drains and canals has achieved very little success. As all drains flowed at their full capacity, it resulted in reverse flow of drained out water.

Though the rains that started in the middle of August stopped in mid September, by then enormous damage had been caused to cotton, rice and chilly crops including vegetables and sugarcane fields. After harvesting of wheat by April and cotton and rice by September, growers start gradually preparing their lands forcane sowing. Onion is also planted on ridges. After giving one to two cycles of irrigation water the space between the two ridges is utilised for cane cultivation. Cane cultivation also takes place in February but not on a big scale because of shortage of water and very low per acre yield.

Under the prevailing conditions, some growers would go for February cultivation of cane,, according to growers. Sindh Abadgar Board President Abdul Majeed Nizamani is of the view that land commanded by Kotri barrage would not have more than 10 to 12 per cent cane cultivation in February. These areas are fed by a non-perennial canal system and water is not available after November.

He, however, hopes that cane sowing would take place even in March in the area. After closure of Sukkur barrage for maintenance, water is released downstream Sukkur. “So water from Sukkur is released in non- perennial canals of Kotri barrage. But still cane sowing in February-March will be insignificant,” he says.

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177 Sindh Chamber of Agriculture president Dr Nadeem

Qamar says around 70 per cent of cane sowing cannot take place during the present autumn season when 90 to 95 per cent of sugarcane is cultivated. Between 20 to 25 per cent cultivation takes place in February when growers miss August-October sowing period. But the late sowing results in poor per acre yield. But the dilemma of growers whose lands are located in tail-end areas is that they don’t get water in February, he says.

Although these lands of abadgars are fed by perennial canals of Sukkur barrage they don’t get water because they are located at the tail-end areas in Jhuddo, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot and Tando Jan Mohammad. These areas were badly affected by recent rains. “I believe that 70 per cent of growers have their lands in the tail-end areas,” he says.

Per acre yield of cane sown in February is poor. According to grower Nadeem Shah the yield is around 300-400 maunds per acre against the average of 700 maunds in autumn. A progressive landowner even gets 1,000 maunds per acre.“Usually germination doesn’t take place when cane is sown in February as temperature starts rising, affecting the growth. However, cane sown in October gets matured enough by the time summer starts. It is not affected by moderate rains but the current spell was exceptional which affected the crop badly, he remarks. But cane can be in patches of dry or high land in these rain affected districts provided landowners are able to prepare them for sowing.

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178 Enormous damage to crops in Sindh

KHARIF crops in Sindh have been seriously damaged by the current monsoon rains. The downpour, starting from the second week of August and still continuing, has engulfed more and more areas in upper Sindh after devastating the lower region. The second spell of rains has multiplied the miseries of the farmers.

Damages to cotton, paddy, sugarcane and vegetables are enormous. Initially the rains spelt disaster over lower Sindh’s Tando Allahyar, Tando Mohammad Khan, Sanghar, Umerkot, Mirpurkhas, Thatta and Badin districts. Now the districts of Khairpur, Benazirabad and rice-growing districts of Jacobabad, Qambar-Shahdadkot, Larkana and Ghotki are facing a similar situation. Katcha houses have collapsed in many areas. Cattle heads are standing in rainwater in several areas.

Sindh was expecting a bumper cotton crop of five million bales this year. The provincial agriculture department is still assessing the crop losses. However, as per its initial assessment, 38 per cent of the total cultivated area has been affected. The figure is feared to go up as 55 per cent of cotton producing area is submerged in rain water. Nearly 23 per cent of paddy, 21 per cent of sugarcane crop and 90 per cent of chilly-growing areas have been damaged. Sindh, according to an estimate, will lose two million bales of cotton. However, some crops sown early in lower Sindh were harvested and marketed before the arrival of monsoon.

Director Crop Reporting Service Amin Thebo estimates losses to crops at Rs77 billion after the first

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179 spell of rains in the second week of August. “Initially the rains damaged 280,000 hectares of cropped area which has now increased to 650,000 hectares. The actual figure and estimates of losses will be available after the rains stop,” he says. The crop may be further damaged as long as rainwater remains standing in fields, he says.

According to an estimate by Mehmood Nawaz Shah, general secretary of Sindh Abadgar Board, around 40 per cent of total cotton crop may be affected while 30-35 per cent of paddy; 50-60 per cent of onion and tomato and 15-20 per cent of sugarcane may be lost. “According to our estimate, the losses to cotton in the lower Sindh belt of Thatta, Badin, Tando Mohammad Khan, Sanghar, Umerkot, Mirpurkhas and Tando Allahyar are 100 per cent,” says Nawaz. The loss to agriculture this year is more than the damage suffered last year. He estimates the losses at over Rs300 billion.

Meanwhile, heavy rains are continuing in upper Sindh, the main rice-producing area. Growers at the tail end of canals in upper Sindh like Larkana, Shahdadkot, Dadu and Jacobabad were complaining of non-availability of water until the third week of July. They sowed rice as late as August wherever water reached. But the crop is now submerged in water.. The growers were yet to recover from losses suffered during the last year’s floods when standing crops in seven right bank districts of upper Sindh were washed away.

Rice grower Gada Hussain Mahesar anticipates 20 per cent damage to paddy crop from the current spell of rains. Due to late sowing the crop had grown by nine to 10 inches which has now submerged in water after the

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180 rains. “I also fear pest attack if water remains standing in the fields for a longer period of time,” he says. Another rice producer Ishaq Mughairi from Shahdadkot district remarks that though season for paddy cultivation is over, growers are still sowing it to get at least fodder for their cattle, if not rice. He adds that transplanted rice saplings are submerged and anti-pest spray has become ineffective, threatening more damages.

Besides, lower Sindh areas of Umerkot, Digri, Tando Jam Mohammad, Kunri, Naukot, Samaro and Khipro, famous for fine quality chilly, have been damaged enormously. The crop on around 80,000-90,000 acres has suffered 80 per cent losses as per estimate of Mian Saleem, president Red Chilly Growers Association. “Only 15-20 per cent of the crop is safe in Kunri where the land is uneven or it is grown on elevated ground” he remarks.

The crop was ready for harvest. Growers usually take the first harvest of chilly by mid September and the second and third in November or December. “We normally get 20 maunds per acre yield in first harvest and around 30 maunds during the second bringing the total production to 50 maunds,” Saleem says. Chilly export will suffer during this season in view of these losses, he says with certainty.

Breaches and overtopping of water in saline water drain – the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) – and other small drains have caused serious damage to agricultural lands as they have not only hit the standing crops but affected the fertility of the land besides contributing to environmental degradation.

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181 The rural belt of the province lacks proper drainage

system. More rains have been forecast.

Mitigating disaster

Last year, districts of Sindh located on the right bank of the River Indus were badly hit by the floods. This year’s disaster has struck the lower Sindh region in particular. Standing crops in these areas have been washed away and some districts in upper Sindh have been engulfed by nature’s fury.

The lower Sindh region is a significant contributor to Pakistan’s economy, producing high-quality cotton, rice, sugarcane and fresh produce. While the losses are still in the process of being assessed, there can be little doubt that the rural economy has been dealt a severe blow.

The losses to the country in general are also likely to run into billions of rupees given that this year the province was set to reap bumper cotton and sugarcane crops. As far as disaster mitigation is concerned, the government apparatus has learnt nothing from last year’s floods. All structural issues remain unresolved, particularly at the district level, even though the comprehensive National Disaster Management Act 2010 has been enacted.

The government has managed to put in place Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMAs) but the next tier of disaster management, the District Disaster Management Authorities (DDMAs), has not yet been established in all of Sindh’s districts. Even in urban centres such as Karachi and Hyderabad, DDMAs can be held as existing in name alone. In districts that have been

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182 badly affected by the rains, including Tando Mohammad Khan, Mirpurkhas, Badin, Sanghar, Benazirabad, Umerkot and Tharparkar, they have not even been formed.

A November 2008 district risk management plan for every province can be found on the website of the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), which details the various aspects of disaster management such as preparedness, coordination and even simulation drills. But these guidelines, which could have helped mitigate the scale of the disaster, were not followed.

Last year, the Sindh PDMA was conspicuous by its absence and this year matters were no different. The parent organisation, the NDMA, exonerates the PDMA on account of its being a new organisation trying to learn from its mistakes. But when it does so at the cost of the poor, is that defensible?

The Sindh PDMA, which works under the provincial rehabilitation ministry, claimed early this year that a disaster risk management plan had been prepared after consultation with stakeholders. Yet when the rain started, no plan came into effect and no effective service delivery system on the part of the PDMA was in evidence. One clear hurdle was underscored when NDMA chairman Dr Zafar Qadir conceded that in Sindh, the contingency plan could not be implemented because of the lack of financial allocations. The required funds were simply not earmarked by the Sindh finance department (Sindh allocated Rs140m as compared to Balochistan’s Rs3bn and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Rs2bn).

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183 The rain-affected areas were being handled through

the conventional routes with deputy district officers and mukhtiarkars handling rescue and relief activities. That raises the question of the duplication of efforts through authorities such as the relief commissioner and the Sindh PDMA hierarchy which have the same task but approach it differently.

In Punjab, the PDMA and the relief commissioner’s office have been merged and a disaster response force (DRF) created. The latter is an important body for handling situations such as flooding, earthquakes or any other sort of natural disaster. It has not been created in Sindh because of the lack of funding. Disasters have different dimensions in various areas and mitigating or managing them requires funds as well as trained people and volunteers. The Sindh PDMA lacks both the financial and material means to do so.

According to the NDMA chairman, Sindh’s contingency plan was prepared but did not work on the ground because of a dearth of resources. Meanwhile, the district coordination officers of the rain-affected districts sought the NDMA’s intervention early in the season since they found handling such a massive problem beyond their capacity.

A former Sindh PDMA director general is on record as having said that the organisation did not recommend that the province’s governor should seek assistance from international relief agencies since it was capable of handling the disaster. After the rains intensified in severity and inundated large swaths of land in lower Sindh, the president and prime minister had to make a global appeal

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184 for assistance. By then, though, the damage had already been done. No transport was available to move the people from inundated villages to higher ground, and the relief camps appeared to be of little use.

Now survivors are living under the skies or in improvised tents, left to fend for themselves as relief goods do not reach everyone. The gigantic task at hand now is primary health cover for such a large, rain-hit population which is being stalked by the threat of malaria, dengue and dysentery. Government agencies estimate that around 5.3 million people have been affected by the rains and 1.7 million acres of cultivated land has been submerged. Global aid agencies have been alerted and are assessing the sectors where they may intervene. Meanwhile, homeless people go hungry and must fight amongst themselves over ration packets.

One can only hope that this year’s experience is enough to prompt the federal and provincial governments to seriously consider disaster-mitigation methodologies with reference to changing weather patterns. Climatic conditions are being modified by climate change and we may expect heavy monsoon rains in the years to come. Adaptation is key to disaster-risk reduction.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/12/agriculture-and-technology-enormous-damage-to-crops-in-sindh.html

http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/10/hard-times-for-cane-growers.html

http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/03/plight-of-poor-peasants.html

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/22/mitigating-disaster.html

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185 Anam Tanveer

Ravages of Rain in Sindh

While terror-stricken Karachi is having brief lull from the killing spree of poor and innocent people due to operation, Interior Sindh has been hit hardly by the merciless torrential monsoon rains causing colossal death, destruction and displacement of millions of people. Hardly people have recovered from the shocks of last year flood, the current spell of rain have broken the economic back of people. They have lost crops, livestock, their homes have been destroyed and now they are living under open skies with no one coming to their help.

Lower and Central Sindh is considered as economic backbone of Pakistan. No wonder rain has made humanity and infrastructure suffered but it has also hit economy of Pakistan, specifically Sindh to major extent.

According to reports of National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) 100 percent seasonal vegetable crop such as onion, tomato, chilies, etc, have been destroyed in addition to the 80 percent of cotton crop in Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas, Badin, Thatta, Nousheroferz, Nawabshah, Khairpur, Shikarpur, Khandhkot-Kashmore, Larkana and Dadu. Cotton is

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186 grown on 1.8 million acres in all the districts of the province.

In addition to wholesale destruction of 70 percent vegetable, 2.4 million cotton, 50 percent of standing paddy crop worth 1 billion, which is cultivated on around 2 million acres in various part of the Sindh, including Larkana, Shikarpur, Qamber-Shahdadkot, Jacobabad, Kashmore-Kandhkot and Dadu districts has ravaged by the vagaries of rain. Damages and destruction is not confined to vegetables, cotton and paddy but sugarcane has bore the brunt of rain and floods.

According to reports 70 percent of sugarcane, grown on 0.7 million acres in districts of Badin, Tando Mohammad Khan, Tando Allahyar, Matiari, Sanghar, Mirpurkhas and Hyderabad. Rain has caused destruction to orchards which spread over 125 million acres worth. According to agriculture expert, topical rains in Sindh spoiled Rs 256 billion worth of major Kharif crops and vegetables in total. According to some reports 17 districts washed off due to floods. 200,000 acres of cotton, 900,000 aces of paddy and 150,000 acres of sugarcane grew from the rain affected areas of Badin.

Other than that tomatoes and onions were also grew from these areas at 80,000 and silage at 15,000 acres which entirely washed away in ruthless rains. In Badin and Thatta alone, in addition to cotton 80,000 acres of paddy was wiped off. The mourning doesn’t end here, as the worth of these commodities was as follows: cotton Rs. 75,000 per acre, onions and tomatoes 60,000 per acres, silage worth 35,000 per acres, and paddy Rs. 60,000 per acre. Virtually, the aggregate lose account for

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187 Rs. 90 billion of vegetables, crops in Umerkot, Mirpurkhas, Thar, Tando Muhammad Khan, Tando Allahyar and parts of Sanghar region.

Rain and floods have also killed people, destroyed their homes and caused so many water-related diseases. According to reports, so far more than 300 people have killed as a result of roof falling and electrocution. In addition to two million people in rain-flood affected districts have displaced and forced to live either in tents or under open skies without proper hygiene and sanitations conditions resulting into outbreak of epidemics that have aggravated the miseries of the affected people as diarrhea, gastroenteritis, malaria and skin diseases are spreading rapidly. Reports further say 600.000 people have so far been displaced, 400,000 houses have been destroyed, 1600 people have been wiped out from the face of this earth and more than 10,000 domestic cattle, including cows, buffalos, sheep, goats, donkeys and hoses have been killed by lethal rain in the affected districts.

According to experts, the aggravation in the scale of destruction and devastation has been caused by breaches in the LBDO and RBDO due to their faulty designs and negligence on the part of irrigation department by not carrying out the desilting of canals, due to which breaches occurred, inundating the agriculture land and destroying standing vegetable, cotton, sugarcane and paddy crops. The performance of (Provincial Disaster Management Authority) is absolutely miserable to an extent that they are on the verge of begging from UN and international NGO’s on the plight

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188 of interior Sindh caused by floods, argued Fayyaz Hussain Abro President Pakistan International Peace and Human Rights, as quoted in Dawn (September 8). According to government source, in Badin alone 214,940 acres of eminence crops of grains, potatoes, cotton, sugarcane, vegetables etc has been destroyed and 3,710 villages have been flooded.

The question arises if things like these happenings then what is the core responsibility of concerned authorities such as NDMA (National Disaster Management Authority) and PDMA (Provisional Disaster Management Authority): either they have to facilitate people or watching as spectator the wholesome destruction of crops and untold human miseries? It seems likes that the responsibilities of NDMA and PDMA have drowned with floods. Government of Sindh has declared 22 districts out of 23 as calamity hit areas and announced relief package of Rs 5 billion for flood-affected people but there is criticism that this amount is just peanut keeping in view the scale of disaster which is bound to induce inflation, price hike which will invariably add fuel to the fire of poverty already caused by IMF programs of structural adjustment.

Sindh has been facing such devastation since long and even last year rained and floods played more havoc. The reason is that people don’t have capacities to protect themselves against natural calamities, for state has not invested much in enhancing the capacities of people so that they can defend themselves against such calamities. According to Amartya Sen, noble laureate in economics, natural calamities hit people when they are

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189 denied of their social, economic and political entitlements such as food, jobs, and access to technology, participation and right to education and Medicare.

If we analyze the situation in interior Sindh in the light of Sen’s entitlement approach, we will find that state has totally failed to empower people and ensure their legal entitlement to the productive assets – education, health faculties and technology. There are no industries and people have no entitlement to land to be distributed judiciously amongst poor peasants.

Apart from lack of entitlement, there are other factors contributing to the poverty of people. According to study of Dr. Manzoor Isran, working in SZABIST, structural adjustment programmes are responsible for creating poverty in the rural Sindh. According to him, since Pakistan is signatory to IMF programmes, under which government has been forced to withdraw subsidy from oil, gas, electricity, which have contributed to poverty.

According to him, it is state’s primary responsibility to initiate projects to create employment and thereby alleviate poverty and reduce income inequalities. Pakistan being signatory to IMF programmes is being asked for downsizing, which means laying off people from jobs. Further, IMF programmes restrict state investment in the industry and agriculture. It is one of the factor causing misery and mayhem.

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190 Finally, I would strongly suggest that if government

is serious to protect people from the injurious effects of the rains and floods, it has to take following measures.

• Investment in the creation of social infrastructure, that is, health education, health.

• Investment in industry in rural areas and thereby create employment.

• Improvement in governance and elimination of corruption

• Land reforms and distribution of land in landless peasants.

• Provide youth from rural areas with microfinance so that they open small and medium business.

I am sure if above cited measure are taken, it certainly it will minimize, if not eliminate poverty, from rural areas.

The writer is MBA from SZABIST, Karachi, also writes for various newspaper and the Account Manager in leading outdoor media agency.http://blogs.aaj.tv/2011/09/ravages-of-rain-in-sindh/

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191 Murtaza Razvi

Charity begins at home

When calamity strikes our part of the world, it strikes with a vengeance. Even the forces of nature have no mercy left for a land misruled for decades. Nature’s fury too unleashes itself on the hapless victims of bad governance; it leaves the poor destitute and the miserable wretched. This is no divine intervention, rest assured. We have elected our own leaders to lord over us. It is they and not God whose intervention we need most in bettering our affairs.

Praying to God to alleviate the sufferings of the flood victims in Sindh and those laid infirm by the Dengue virus in Punjab, as President Zardari so earnestly requested the nation on the eve of his departure for England, was clearly the only panacea left with his government in the face of the crises at hand. Prime Minister Gilani, while also on a trip abroad, chose the other option: he carried with him the begging bowl to Iran and got it filled with some 10 million dollars. Ads appearing in newspapers on his behalf also request “My people” to contribute to his relief fund. So are we running a country or a cult here? And defying the gods that be thereby.

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192 Some 10 million people are displaced by the floods

in Sindh while Dengue epidemic in Lahore alone has reportedly affected nearly 4,000 people, forcing the Punjab government to shut down all educational institutions in the province for ten days. There are well-founded fears that the virus could spill into the neighbouring provinces too as Punjab borders every other province in the country, and the mosquitoes do not necessarily discriminate between the people of one or the other province. However, they seem to mind the Indian border with due diligence and have not ventured 14 miles east of Lahore to plague Amritsar, for instance. The Indians must have done something right to keep them at bay.

To a large extent, the flood and Sindh and Dengue in Punjab are both man-made disasters. They could have been prevented or at least contained within manageable limits with some proper planning. The problem of salinity and water-logging in Sindh is well documented and has consistently increased in terms of the areas it affects over the years; yet, nothing was done all these years to contain the growing menace despite last year’s harrowing floods. If it’s not the rivers overflowing and bursting their banks this monsoon season, it’s simply the rain that’s wreaked much more havoc in rural and urban Sindh alike. Had the drainage system been cleared and streamlined ahead of the rainy season this year, Sindh would not have drowned the way it has.

Not that it wasn’t put on paper (like so many ghost schools out there). The accountant general will undoubtedly tell you that the allocated funds were

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193 indeed released to the authorities concerned in Sindh for the very purpose, just as enough anti-Dengue virus spray was provided to the Lahore municipality which instead of spraying the city streets sold the stock (marked ‘For government use. Not for sale.’) in the open market. But there shall never be any accountability for this or that lapse because it is just not the one thing here. Year after year it’s the same story.

The jet-set leadership has to put its feet back on the ground to experience firsthand the misery their misrule has unleashed on those they have the audacity to call “my people”. Whether it is ill-gotten or hard earned money, the fact remains that leaders from the Zardaris to Gilanis to the Sharifs, Khans and the rest of them ruling this country are filthy rich; many have got only richer over the years. It’s only fair that before carrying the begging bowls abroad or asking the world to help, they too should make some individual monetary contribution to the relief effort. If PIA employees can contribute a day’s wages, what is deterring the elected representatives from making some such token effort?

In fact, people like the president, the prime minister and the chief ministers and their party chiefs can help by simply cutting down on their state-paid seven-course meals which they devour themselves and shamelessly offer to stunned foreign dignitaries whom they beg for help at the same time. Why not enforce a one-dish menu for their royal lunches and dinners in a country whose internal and external debt is now going straight up to its ears?

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194 Charity should really begin at home. While Nawaz

Sharif is right when he says we need to break the begging bowl, it is time he too coughed up some of his golden coins to alleviate the misery over which his heart bleeds. Maybe by doing so the opposition leader can shame the president and the prime minister into making similar donations — even if they be to their own relief funds — which, alas, have little credibility with Pakistanis and foreigners alike.

The writer is a member of the staff at Dawn Newspaper.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/16/charity-begins-at-home.html

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195 Dr. Sono Khangharani & Zulfiqar Halepoto

A paradigm shift in rural economy

Having grown up and kept working in the most marginalised and backward area of Thar Desert, the impact and magnitude of the term disaster and its outcome in the shape of flood, drought and famine are not unknown to many of us.

Owing to unprecedented monsoon rains of 2011-12, the region is again under the grip of devastation, massive displacement of population, hunger and malnutrition, and failure in early rescue and recovery attempts including provision of food, drinking water, shelter and rehabilitation of the affected communities.

Today the greatest challenge for donors, the government and flood-related agencies, is to get rid of the accumulated water to secure land for next crop. In this regard there are successful models of paradigm change in cropping patterns after the 2010 floods to ensure food security for the disaster prone areas of lower Sindh.

It was the breach of Torri Bund on August 7, 2010 that caused heavy devastation in northern part of Sindh. The flood inundated over seven districts of the province. The flood brought people on the roads washing away

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196 their hearth and home, livestock and grain vital for their survival.

The Sindh Rural Support Organisation (SRSO), in response to extensive floods in Sindh, launched flood relief operations on August 8, 2010 in the affected areas. The organisation also established an emergency cell which is working since the declaration of emergency along with Village Rehabilitation Programme (VRP) unit independently with a dedicated team of engineers and town planners.

Initially, the SRSO started relief operation with the provision of cooked food to displaced people, fodder and vaccines for livestock, and safe drinking water through tankers for the people. Subsequently these activities were complemented by other donor activities such as distribution of dry ration, installation of hand pumps, setting up temporary shelters and latrines and health and hygiene awareness sessions.

The rehabilitation work was started with the support of government and donor agencies. However, considering the huge number of people affected by the flood, the current relief efforts can only be viewed as a short-term support. Significant funding, planning and combined efforts are needed to provide sustainable long-term rehabilitation to the uprooted masses.

Hundreds of thousands of affected people of 2010 flood, and monsoon rains of 2011 are still in relief camps and need comprehensive relief support in the form of dry rations, potable water and health and hygiene. People who have returned to their native places need

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197 support to earn their livelihood and construct homes. In areas where people have returned closer to their native places still submerged under rainwater need food and transitional shelters, perhaps till the next cycle of crop which will take eight to nine months from now or until they have alternative sources of livelihood.

Now these efforts are not enough, people need alternative resources to develop their means of livelihood and to ensure food security. In this regard, cultivation of sunflower has been started under the Sindh Agriculture Recovery Project of USAID. The programme was started by the SRSO in seven flood-hit districts of Sindh to provide early relief to sufferers from losses suffered by supper flood of 2010. Small growers of various flood-ravaged parts of Sindh have successfully cultivated Sunflower crop on 1,07,500 acres and changed the pattern of crop in Sindh. Sunflower crop has changed the pattern of crop and it is hoped it will meet the target of edible oils in the country.

Flood-affected farmers have cultivated wheat over 30,000 acres and Sunflower over 7,500 acres in three districts Larkana, Dadu and Sukkur districts under the Food and Agriculture Organisation’s project. These projects were strictly monitored through third party to ensure that all wheat and sunflower seeds distributed among growers through the Thardeep Rural Development Programme (TRDP) and SRSO were fully sown.

Sunflower was cultivated on 1, 01,152 acres in seven districts of Sindh. The SRSO purchased the produce from growers on the spot and contacted industrialists and

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198 traders for its onward sale in the market. Flood-affected growers are advised to cultivate sunflower crop and vegetables for early recovery from losses incurred during 2010 and 2011 floods.

The recent showers in Sindh benefited the crop and it proved to be a success in the flood-affected districts. The crop cultivated on 1,30,000 acres included 1,10,152 acres cultivated under Sindh Agriculture Recovery project till February 20, 2011. The crop was harvested only after three months in late April, 2011.

It is believed that the power of social mobilisation and capacity-building can play a dynamic role in changing the landscape. Once the rural poor are organised, important changes can take place changing their socio-economic condition.

Writers are affiliated with rural development organisations TRDP and SRSO

http://www.dawn.com/2011/12/12/a-paradigm-shift-in-rural-economy.html

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199 Wajid Shamsul Hasan

Pakistan is again hit by devastating floods

Just when it was on road to recovery Pakistan has again been hit by a natural calamity causing devastation of enormous magnitude. Sindh province has had the worst of rain and flooding havoc.

Approximately five million lives have been uprooted besides causing huge devastation to livestock and standing crops. Hundreds of people have lost their lives; over four million acres of land is under water; 2.5 million acres of crops have been destroyed; and over a million houses have been damaged or washed away. The situation is worsening with forecast of more widespread rains in the area. Initial estimates paint a grim picture with economic losses caused by these rains could run into billions of dollars.

In the wake of the severity and scale of this natural disaster, urgent humanitarian assistance is required to save lives and continue rescue operations. The most pressing requirements at the moment are for tents, aqua

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200 tablets, water purification equipment, food supplies, de-watering pumps and medicines.

President of Pakistan Asif Ali Zardari has appealed to the international community for humanitarian and rehabilitation assistance. The president is also requesting the UN Secretary General to mobilize the international community for urgently needed relief assistance to save precious lives. A team of UN agencies is visiting the affected areas for a needs assessment. The president has also appealed to the people of Pakistan, including the expatriate community, to make generous contributions and assist in the rescue, relief and rehabilitation efforts for millions of their compatriots affected by this natural calamity.

It needs to be reiterated that last year s devastating floods, which marooned one fifth of Pakistan, had caused unprecedented destruction which the UN described as worst than Asian tsunami. Apart from 1,400 deaths the overall losses were estimated by the World Bank and Asian Development Bank at $10 billion. The government of Pakistan was still grappling with last year s devastation; the fresh floods were the last thing one would have expected in the beloved motherland which is already facing enormous problems including extremist threat, regional instability and acute energy crisis.

Although despite better economic performance, with 40% rise in exports ($27 billion); robust foreign exchange reserves ($18 billion); highest level of remittances by Pakistani Diaspora ($12 billion) and a bullish trend in stock market (12000 points), the country needs international community s support, especially in

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201 providing immediate relief to the affected people, including life-saving medicines, shelter and drinking water.The Pakistani community in UK has always been at the forefront whenever Pakistan faced any calamity. Last year the community made generous contribution in the Prime Minister s Flood Relief Fund. The community also directly reached out to the flood victims and built thousands of houses in all the four provinces of Pakistan.

The British government s generous assistance of £134 million and Disaster Emergency Committee (DEC) s donation of £71 million, distributed through its affiliate NGO s, provided much needed relief to the devastated people. The rehabilitation work is still continuing. However, fresh floods have again put an added strain on the government and the people of Pakistan to provide relief to their vulnerable compatriots. I am confident that the international community would once again come forward to play their role in sharing the burden of the government of Pakistan.

The government and people of Pakistan are aware of the donor fatigue due to various emergencies world over and would continue to rely on its own resources and share the major burden of the relief and rehabilitation work. But certain emergencies are beyond any government s control such as provision of tents, aqua tablets, water purification equipment, food supplies, de-watering pumps and medicines.

Since time is of essence, urgent relief would be needed for the flood victims. Pakistan High Commission and its Consulates General in Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford and Glasgow would be on standby to guide the

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202 Pakistani community to channel their relief efforts through the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA). I would also appeal to the community to channel their relief work through the NDMA as being the apex body it is in a much better position to coordinate relief work and provide relief to the areas, which need help on most urgent basis.

The writer is Pakistan s High Commissioner in London

http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=67274&Cat=6

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203 Ayaz Amir

Strange ways of the Islamic Republic

Flood waters may have devastated Sindh again, knee-deep water may be standing in Karachi, and Lahore, the capital of good governance, may be, for the second year running, in the grip of the dengue virus but through long experience we know how to take such disasters in our stride. These too will pass. Next to the national capacity for cynicism is our stoical attitude towards calamities, man-made or nature-inflicted.

Perish the thought of learning anything from last year’s floods or last year’s dengue invasion. Doing that or taking preventive measures simply would be out of character. That’s not how things are done with us. The call for collective prayers is the last refuge of the Islamic Republic in distress. Having issued such a call, let no one say President Asif Ali Zardari has not performed his foremost national duty.

The matter is now between the Pakistani nation and the throne of the Lord of the Worlds. Let Him now come to our assistance. We have done what the dire situation

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204 demanded. The rest is up to Him and His boundless mercy.And let no heretic think it will be any different next year, or the year after. We will continue to behave as we do and when things get desperate we will invoke the intervention of the Most High. And our duty will be done.

And let no one crib that the president thought fit just at this time to go for a medical check-up to the UK. If he had stayed here what Napoleonic effort would he have led to combat the flood-waters or the dengue onslaught? As for the prime minister...well, about him the less said the better. Certain things, certain people, are unimpressionable. Hit them with a sledgehammer and they will not get the point. The prime minister, entirely in character, has been away on one of his endless foreign visits. If he had stayed behind, everything would still be the same.

The Punjab CM has been in Sri Lanka seeking help for the dengue outbreak. We helped the Sri Lankans in their civil war. It is but right they should return the favour and give us a somewhat better understanding than we seem to have of the dengue outbreak which, at least for the moment, has overshadowed everything else in the capital of good governance. Next we could think of asking Bangladesh for help to get our population control programme going. Time was when we in this part of Pakistan would smirk at the Bengali gift for fertility. Now at least in this field we have left our former brethren far behind, our birth-rate ahead of anything that Bangladesh can boast of. But let’s look at the bright side of this

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205 conundrum. A higher birth-rate means more warriors for the greater glory of the faith. That can’t be bad.

Only problem is what temple of Somnath will our holy warriors strive to conquer? To the achievement of what noble task will their holy endeavours be bent? Kashmir and Afghanistan are littered with the wreckage of our dreams. Those lands, alas, are not to be conquered anymore, for which I would like to commiserate with my dear friends, Gen Hamid Gul and General Aslam Beg. The only place safely to be conquered is Pakistan itself but this has been conquered so many times in the name of Islam that the scope for further conquest, on the same premises, has been well nigh eliminated.

Next we could turn to Nepal, with its experience of Maoist fighters joining the political mainstream, for help in trying to understand how to bring Baloch and other rebels in from the cold and make them part of the Pakistani mainstream.

But first we have to see how the Sri Lankan experiment in Lahore succeeds. If imperfect memory serves, the last time we saw Sri Lankans in Lahore our holy warriors tried desperately to slaughter them, no doubt for the greater glory of the faith. And if they did not succeed, and no Sri Lankan was hurt, it was, sadly, not because of the brave and farsighted Lahore police but the presence of mind of their bus driver who put his foot down hard and did not stop until he had reached Gaddafi Stadium (yes, we still haven’t changed its name and probably shouldn’t....Gaddafi, whatever his later

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206 sins, helped us in times past. For Auld Lang Syne then let us keep the name unchanged).

Let’s hope our holy warriors can spot the distinction between cricketers and dengue-eradication experts. Although why they should have thought of visiting cricketers as a kosher target would forever remain a theological mystery. Their eminences Ayman Al-Zawahiri and Hakeemullah Mehsud should one day explain. Although if the best of our holy warriors can think nothing of attacking van-loads of school kids why they should baulk at a foreign cricket team is a point to consider.

But could some enlightened soul shed light on another mystery, of a judicial nature? Why are their Lordships in Karachi? That they have been disturbed by the lawlessness gripping the city, and by the hundreds of deaths in the last few months, is easy enough to understand. Their Lordships have taken suo moto notice of lesser happenings. Karachi affects the entire country, so taking stock of the situation there makes eminent sense.

But it would help, and even advance the sum of national understanding, if the nation was given some idea of what their Lordships were hoping to achieve. Their daily pronouncements in open court, their obiter dicta, the nation reads of with great interest and even excitement. But we have to pause for a moment. Are the armed militias operating in Karachi open or amenable to wordy admonitions? Their Lordships have said that the government should give in writing that it will not support any armed group. Really? Is this all? A written

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207 undertaking from the government? If only the Karachi situation was responsive to written undertakings. For beggars it would be their day of deliverance. They would be riding horses.

On stage no calamity is worse than a sense of anti-climax, of the thunder of the opening chorus ending, when the play is up, in a whimper. Beware a sense of anti-climax. Their Lordships, who could give amateur dramatists a lesson in the finer points of their calling, surely understand.

Their Lordships have no fiercer partisan, no admirer more steadfast, than the eminent Urdu columnist, my friend Irfan Siddiqui. But even he in his latest column has been found lamenting the circumstance that if their Lordships can come up with nothing better than verbal injunctions it will be a sad day for us all. I rest my case although it would be interesting to know what Mr Siddiqui is expecting of their Lordships? What is his idea of the tangible? Does he want them to pass strictures against the MQM? Does he want the army riding in? Some clarity would help.

My advice, for what it’s worth, would be slightly different. Of all the operations of war, retreat is the most difficult...not a headlong retreat, which is easily accomplished, but an ordered retreat. Generals conducting orderly withdrawals have earned some of the highest praise in military history. Going into Karachi was easy. The time may now have come for an orderly withdrawal.

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208 But to return to other issues...the waters standing

knee-deep in Karachi will have to recede on their own. There is nothing that we, or rather the municipal fathers, can do anything about this. In our calendar September is the cruellest month. That’s when mosquitoes breed the most. To the lunar and weather gods let us pray that September passes swiftly. October should bring some relief from the dengue invasion. Meantime the medical services, under-performing as always, will have to cope as best as they can. And of course there is always the recourse to collective prayer.

Why haven’t we heard something from the Young Doctors’ Association? They were on strike some months ago for higher entitlements. Can’t they issue some kind of a call fashioned around the dengue challenge? Or is that too much to ask?Meanwhile I breathlessly await the next foreign trips of the president and prime minister. Keep at it, my masters, for when all else is forgotten by these small tokens of your national solicitude will ye be remembered.

winlust@yahoo.com

http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=67828&Cat=9

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209 Huma Yusuf

Information aid during disaster

Days before Japan raised the alert level at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant from four to five on a seven-point scale of atomic incidents; the government had imposed a 12-mile exclusion zone around the plant. Over 100,000 people had to be swiftly evacuated from the area; elderly patients died in transit out of the radiation risk zone.

Those who made it to temporary shelters did not have enough food, medicine, fuel, blankets or other basic necessities. The mayor of one city in the exclusion zone complained that his people were being left to die. Such tragic scenes in Japan — which has been praised in recent days for the high quality of its emergency drills, preparedness and response — should give the governments of far more disorganised disaster-prone areas pause to think. Unfortunately, Pakistan falls into that category.

Writing in these pages last week, Syed Iqbal Mohsin reminded us that various parts of Pakistan are at high risk for earthquakes. Karachi, the nation’s economic lifeline, is especially vulnerable — the US Geological

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210 Survey places it in zone four out of four on its hazard map, meaning that it is at the highest risk.

Moreover, as climate change and pollution exacerbate Himalayan glacial melt, Pakistan is expected to face more devastating floods of the sort that occurred last summer. In short, Pakistan can reasonably expect to have to evacuate thousands of citizens from a vulnerable or disaster-hit region at some point in the future. Last summer’s floods and the 2005 earthquake drove home the point that the government’s disaster preparedness is appalling. But given the terrain we inhabit, we have to act now to ensure our safety later. One area where the government can start without making too much of an economic investment is by identifying a communications infrastructure to distribute ‘information aid’ or humanitarian information.

A major component of any evacuation, rescue or relief effort is the provision of accurate, timely and relevant information to affected populations about what services are available and how they can be accessed. Ideally, the communications infrastructure should work two ways, allowing affected people to identify their needs and register complaints about the government or humanitarian assistance providers.

A recent survey conducted by Internews Europe in conjunction with Communicating with Disaster Affected Communities (CDAC) found that Pakistan’s mechanisms for distributing information aid are sorely lacking, as demonstrated during last summer’s floods. The survey polled 1,072 people in eight flood-affected areas in Sindh and Punjab. City dwellers inhabiting media-saturated

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211 bubbles may be surprised to learn that half of all respondents did not have access to any electronic or mass media. Those who did obtained little information of use through mainstream programming. The humanitarian aid community had privileged radio as the medium for information dissemination, but only one-fifth of respondents had access to a radio.

Cellphones were also of little help: although 27.2 per cent of respondents owned one, only 6.7 per cent had received an informative SMS from someone they knew, and only four respondents (0.4 per cent) had received relevant information from a humanitarian organisation via SMS. Two-way communication was mostly limited to conversations with assistance providers at distribution sites.

The need for better information distribution cannot be understated, however. One-third of respondents who received information say they were able to save their own lives as a result, 75.2 per cent said they obtained food and water, and 43.2 per cent found shelter. In light of these statistics, it is essential that the government identify and coordinate a better information delivery system comprising multiple mediums for use during emergencies.

The survey offers some guidance on how the government might proceed. For instance, when asked to pick the best channel of communication to deliver humanitarian information, one-third of respondents picked television broadcasts and an equal number opted for loudspeaker announcements through the local mosque. Interestingly, word of mouth remained the

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212 most effective, widespread and trusted medium of communication.

Of course, the challenge of information aid delivery is that humanitarian organisations cannot reach all affected citizens through word of mouth. Moreover, as messages are related within communities, they are adulterated with the conveyors’ own biases, agenda, opinion or misinformation. An information delivery system is all for naught if the quality of the messaging is severely degraded. Television, then, seems to be the sensible medium to prime for the delivery of humanitarian information during a crisis — especially since more than double the number of respondents who trust loudspeaker announcements (18.6 per cent) trust news broadcasts (44 per cent).

Given the current antagonistic relationship between the government and the independent media, and the fact that many Pakistanis see the media as stoking political instability, the industry’s involvement in information aid delivery could alter these perceptions. A media industry seen to work in the public interest will ultimately enjoy more credibility and freedom.

Cellphone connectivity should also be better utilised as it is becoming ubiquitous: there were 102.777 million active SIM cards in Pakistan as of June 2010. Phone calls or SMS from trusted individuals or organisations are also a wonderful evolution of word-of-mouth information dissemination.

Moreover, harnessing cellphone connectivity to build a communications infrastructure can open the way

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213 for other social development projects. Take, for example, the Unesco, Mobilink and Bunyad pilot project that promotes female literacy through informative Urdu-language SMS broadcasts.

Recipients are expected to respond to the messages and their gains in knowledge are periodically assessed. Such an initiative facilitates usage behaviours, familiarises populations with mobile technology and helps users trust the information they receive via SMS. It is well known that information is power, but imagine the possibilities when it becomes life-saving too.

The writer is the Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre in Washington, DC.

huma.yusuf@gmail.com

http://www.dawn.com/2011/03/21/information-aid-during-disaster.html

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214 Ayesha Hasan

Away from home

The UN estimates that more than half the world’s population will be living in cities over the next four decades (if not sooner). Pakistan is one of the most rapidly urbanising countries, and Karachi has one of the fastest growth rates of urban migration. Conflict, climate change and economic hardship are the contributing factors to urban migration in Pakistan.

Haris Gazdar, senior researcher at the Collective for Social Science Research, states in A Review of Migration in Pakistan that “Patterns of migration in Pakistan — from labour abundant rural areas of [Khyber Pakhtunkhwa] and Punjab to urban centres of Punjab and Sindh — conform to a basic poverty-migration linkage. Rising inflation, lack of rural development and jobs means more and more economic migrants are flocking to urban centres in search of employment, moving back and forth between city and village.”

The constant yo-yoing between rural to urban and urban to rural means that many migrant families don’t have access to basic healthcare and education. Migrant children don’t get access to schooling; coupled with rising rents in urban slums and squatter settlements, this

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215 results in a constant momentum in search of affordable even if transient living conditions, scuttling sustained approach to education. Many schoolchildren also fall through the cracks as a result of migration.

Pakistan’s first official wave of migration was in the wake of its inception after partition of India. Between 1951 and 1981, the urban population quadrupled. The annual urban growth rate during the 1950s and 1960s was more than five per cent. This figure dropped slightly in the 1970s to 4.4 per cent. Between 1980 and early 1994, it averaged about 4.6 per cent.

By early 1994, about 32 per cent of all Pakistanis lived in urban areas, with 13 per cent of the total population living in three cities of over one million inhabitants each —Lahore, Faisalabad and Karachi.

Migration to urban centres needs to be addressed and dealt with effectively and positively; lack of infrastructure, strained resources and poverty can lead to insecurity and violence. Warm winters due to global warming mean rivers and lakes have dried or are drying up resulting in more displacement. Victims of war and conflict can’t go back because there is very little to go back to.

Pakistan has seen IDPs from disasters such as the earthquake in 2005, the military offensives in the north-west in 2009, the Indus river flood in 2010 and rain flooding in 2011. The guiding principles on internal displacement define internally displaced persons as “persons or groups of persons who have been forced or obliged to flee or to leave their homes or places of

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216 habitual residence, in particular as a result of or in order to avoid the effects of armed conflict, situations of generalised violence, violations of human rights or natural or human-made disasters, and who have not crossed an internationally recognised State border.”

In 2009 there were more than three million IDPs in Pakistan. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) estimates that the number of IDPs in Pakistan in 2010 was in the range of 1,470,000-2,000,000. Under-registration (and the floods of 2011) would suggest that the real numbers are 25-50 per cent higher than the official figures (UNOCHA, March 2010).

In Pakistan IDPs are a humanitarian emergency that will not abate anytime soon and needs to be recognised as a serious crisis. Climate change has returned the monsoon to Pakistan and has already caused massive flooding during the last two years.

Roberta Cohen in her paper, “An institutional gap for disaster IDPs (Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement) argues that “Recognition that people displaced by disasters need protection of their human rights is long overdue. So are effective institutional arrangements. ‘Disaster IDPs’ need the establishment of new institutional arrangements to protect their human rights. After the 2005 earthquake, the government argued against applying international principles of protection to IDPs since they were not formal refugees and put pressure on them to leave the camps without making adequate preparations for their return.”

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217 Similarly, after the 2010 Indus river floods, Jahanzeb

Aslam reported in his article, ‘Returning Tides’, for Newsweek that the “government claimed that 99 per cent of the people displaced had been repatriated; “The ‘repatriated’ people are living in temporary shelters, primarily tents, they have no means of recovery.”

During a recent trip to Badin in October on a temporary settlement assessment with an international organisation, it was further reinforced that these IDPs have no or very little means of recovery without sustained help. The international donor response for this year’s flood relief has been low (failed to meet its target) but Pakistan’s private sector/ philanthropy response to flood relief and recovery was fairly substantial.

Joint humanitarian partnerships between the public and private sectors is one feasible option to sustain and make an impact in disaster response initiatives. Return is taking place but Pakistan needs a comprehensive IDP policy as it does one on migration. The Human Development Report of 2009 states that, “National and local policies play a critical role in enabling better human development outcomes for both those who choose to move in order to improve their circumstances, and those forced to relocate due to conflict, environmental degradation, or other reasons.”

There is a dire need for long-term Disaster Risk Reduction in Pakistan such as the Nepal Risk Reduction Consortium (NRRC) which works towards supporting the Nepalese government in implementing Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) strategies. climate change and conflict are resulting in more and more crises in Pakistan.

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218 The 2010 Indus flood affected had barely recovered

and somewhat rehabilitated when a new wave of floods in August, 2011 further exacerbated the displacement which has led to 1.4 million flood affected people in Sindh. We need to focus on promoting more community based disaster management initiatives as well as work with the government to formulate (and adopt) Pakistan specific disaster risk reduction, prevention and containment strategies and policies.

The writer is a development consultant

http://www.dawn.com/2011/11/27/away-from-home.html

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219 Azhar Lashari

LBOD Drainage crisis in Indus basin

THE recent floods in Sindh have triggered a debate in the media about the role of the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) in exacerbating the disaster in the south-eastern districts of the province.

Much has been said and written about how the LBOD, meant for the drainage of excessive irrigation water from Nawabshah, Sanghar and Mirpurkhas districts into the Arabian Sea, has turned out to be a recurring cause of flood disaster since the 1999 cyclone in lower Sindh.

The debate focusing on the LBOD issue draws attention towards the much larger issue of `drainage crisis` engineered by international aid through man-made structural interventions in irrigation and drainage in the Indus basin — the only river basin of the country.

The portion of land drained by a river and its tributaries is the river basin. It encompasses an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow converges on a single point called the exit of the basin,

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220 and eventually flows into an estuary, a lake, an ocean or a sea.

The Indus basin is one of the largest basins in Asia. It extends over four countries including China, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Around 56 per cent of the Indus basin lies in Pakistan. The British Raj introduced a modern irrigation system with perennial water supplies through mega structural measures like headworks, weirs and barrages on the rivers. Such interventions in the Indus basin commenced in 1859 with the completion of the Upper Bari Doab Canal (MBDC) from the Madhopur Headworks (now in India) on the Ravi.

However, considerable expansion of the irrigation network in the Indus basin took place in the decades following independence. That expansion was possible because of international aid (read loan).

With three storage reservoirs, two headworks, 16 barrages, 12 interlink canals, 44 canal systems, more than 64,000km of canals and 90,000 water courses in the Indus basin today, Pakistan has one of the largest contiguous irrigation systems in the world.

The huge infrastructure has made it possible to divert 101 million acre feet (MAF) out of the 154 MAF annual water flow in the Indus basin for feeding the canal system, thereby intensifying irrigation in the country. Out of a total of 52.75 million acres of cropped area, the average annual irrigated area constitutes 40 million acres. Of this, 34.5 million acres are irrigated through the canal irrigation system

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221 But from the outset, the intensive irrigation network

has unleashed a range of social and environmental problems including marginalisation of the landless and indigenous people, demographic imbalances tilted in favour of powerful political and ethnic groups, the erosion of flora and fauna, and last but not least, land degradation in the form of waterlogging and salinity.

However, the only problem that has attracted the attention of policymakers has been waterlogging and salinity. To fix the problem, structural measures like the Salinity Control and Rehabilitation Project (SCARP), Main Nara Valley Drain (MNVD), LBOD, National Drainage Programme (NDP) and the Right Bank Outfall Drain (RBOD) were undertaken. katcha nashaib pucca

The huge irrigation and drainage network developed over one and a half centuries has created an unprecedented drainage crisis in the country. The construction of storage reservoirs, barrages, weirs and other engineering works across and along the Indus rivers has seriously obstructed natural drainage in the Indus basin — both in low-lying ( or ) areas and high lands ().

The riverbeds that developed over thousands of years have been squeezed into narrow passages, not allowing peak flood flows to pass smoothly. For instance, the Indus bed previously spanned 14-20km in the plains of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, south-western Punjab and Sindh before the advent of the modern irrigation regime that saw the construction of embankments. It has now been reduced to not more than 2km. pucca

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222 In addition, the accumulation of silt in reservoirs as

well as in beds has further reduced the carrying capacity of rivers, besides increasing water velocity and intensifying bank erosion. Similarly, the development of canal and drainage infrastructure in lands has obstructed the natural drainage of streams and hill torrents that ultimately are discharged into the river basin.

For instance, the development of canals branching out from Chashma, Taunsa, Guddu and Sukkur barrages, and the RBOD have seriously complicated the drainage of hill torrents on the right bank of the Indus in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, south-western Punjab and western Sindh.

Last year`s floods and the extraordinary torrential rain in Sindh in 2011 have revealed how the drainage crisis of the Indus basin has turned out to be a permanent flood hazard, exposing the people of the country — particularly those living in Sindh and south-western Punjab — to new risks and vulnerabilities.

As mega irrigation and drainage projects involve enormous economic costs and technical expertise, international financial institutions (IFIs) have been at the centre of efforts to promote a techno-centric approach to water development in Pakistan. They have played a role not only in complicating the drainage crisis in the Indus basin but also in incurring a heavy foreign debt.

The World Bank (WB) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) have prescribed, supported and funded many mega structures like the Tarbela Dam, Chashma Right Bank Irrigation Project, LBOD, NDP, Chotiari Dam, Taunsa

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223 Barrage, the Emergency Rehabilitation and Modernisation Project (TBERMP), etc that are socially unjust, politically exclusionary, economically exploitative and environmentally disastrous.

It is high time to find a sustainable solution to the drainage crisis in the Indus basin, besides holding WB and ADB accountable for inflicting death, disease, hunger and livelihood disruptions on hundreds of thousands people affected by last year`s floods and this year`s heavy rains in Sindh. The IFIs must be pushed to compensate the people.

The writer works for an international anti-poverty organisation.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/13/drainage-crisis-in-indus-basin.html

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224

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225

Climate Change Debate

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226

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227 B.Khan

Environment: Climate change realities

The short-term memory has already classified the winter of 2010-2011 as both long and cold in the majority of the country which—following as it did on the heels of a few years of relatively mild winters—it may well have seemed to be. Yet, in reality, it was nothing of the sort, serving instead to further highlight the dangers of unfolding climate change.

Winter has traditionally always begun during mid-November and run through until at least the end of February in the plains and a month or so longer in upland areas of the country with the short spring. March and April follow by five months of summer, turning to autumn in September in the hills and at the beginning of October in the plains. This pattern, however, has undergone a drastic change over the last 10 to15 years and is having a knock-on affect on both the agricultural and horticultural sectors. Plus, it has also increased demands for electricity and gas which, as a direct result of this climate change, are in increasingly short supply.

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228 The four seasons of the year now run something like

this: the winter—January through February; the spring—March. The summer starts in April till the end of October and the autumn beginning in November to the end of December. This trend towards shorter winter, almost nonexistent spring, very long summer and late, compressed autumn also includes more extreme climate events—in the form of storms, flooding and extended periods of drought—than earlier weather patterns underwent what is, in climate terms, an extremely rapid alteration. This phenomenon, if it continues at this pace, will, within the next 10-15 years diminish winter and autumn even further, delete spring completely and leave the country subject to an almost permanent summer beset by periodic, intensive storms be they wet storms or dry ones.

This potentially devastating alteration of seasons is obviously not confined to Pakistan alone: it is a global phenomenon although the lengthening and shortening of specific seasons differs from continent to continent depending on latitude and longitude. But the overall effect on food production remains roughly the same.

What this means for food security in Pakistan is worrying indeed as longer, hotter summers when, according to scientific experts, monsoons may or may not arrive and if they do, are liable to be of high intensity over a shortened time span, will adversely impact agricultural and horticultural production across the board. Farmers are already facing problems in this respect as traditional sowing times of traditional crops grown in traditional areas often no longer apply.

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229 Generally speaking, sowing can be performed earlier

than has been the practice for preceding generations but, particularly in barani areas that are heavily dependent on rainfall patterns, this promptly leads to complications as rain fall patterns have not moved forward in line with sowing times. If a farmer sows his crops according to currently emerging weather patterns he may well lose everything when rain fails to materialise when it is most required, which is one of the reasons that farmers need expert guidance on how to cope with climate change as of now.

These rapid seasonal changes are also having an adverse effect on the natural world as nature, which is attuned to changes taking place over thousands, even millions of years, is largely unable to adapt fast enough to keep abreast with the current scenario.

Tree species such as apricots, plums and apples, widely cultivated in upland areas, are coming into blossom earlier each year and now often bloom before their locally indigenous pollinators are active. This can result in reduced pollination and therefore reduced crops, a situation further exacerbated by indiscriminate use of pesticides which wipe out useful insects along with the harmful ones.

All plant species, not just cultivated ones, are under abnormal levels of stress as seasons shrink/expand, average temperatures rise and rainfall/snow patterns spin out of the ‘norm’ and it will take time, perhaps a number of years, for the full effect of these changes to become known.

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230 The danger is that whilst being aware that change is

going on, concerned agricultural and horticultural departments do not move fast enough to avert future shortages of fresh food by educating growers as to how best to cope with potential problems and also by introducing new crop species able to tolerate anticipated climatic conditions.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/04/03/environment-climate-change-realities.html

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231 Salman Shah Jilani

Armageddon 2012: Will the world succumb to climate

change?

I still remember clearly how me and my friends were laughing out loud at every scene of the movie 2012, back in 2010, when we sat together to watch it .We never thought that this natural chaos shown in that movie would ever happen to us until July of last year.

The print, electronic and social media began to

frantically scream about the great floods in Pakistan in

which around 1,985 people lost their lives, nearly 40

million people affected and a loss of $43 billion had to be

endured by the already sick economy. The floods were

something that touched each and every one of us, as

watching live pictures of our fellow countrymen stranded

in floods from Khyber to Thatta was heart-breaking.

These images made me wonder, is it the beginning

of the end? However, being one of those few optimistic

individuals left in Pakistan, I discarded this thought and

brushed it off as an absurd notion.

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232 The inception of the winter of last year however,

had something else in store for me. My friend in London,

who was planning to come to Pakistan, was stuck at the

airport for days when no plane could take off because

the snowfall in Europe had broken all previous records.

Life throughout Europe came to a grinding halt. Several

train services had been delayed or cancelled across

Europe leaving many travelers stranded. UK, France and

Germany were amongst the worst-hit countries.

What followed this were floods in three continents

and drought in Africa. Climate change intensified the

monsoon rains that triggered record floods in Australia’s

Queensland state. The Queensland floods have killed 16

people, since the downpour started last month. They are

inundating towns, crippling coal mines, and are

swamping the state’s main city of Brisbane.

Moving to Latin America, avalanches of mud and

debris, triggered by flash flooding in Rio de Janeiro,

buried entire towns and smashed roads and bridges in

the region. The death toll in Brazil’s worst landslides in

decades is likely to hit 1,000 as authorities warned that

hundreds were still missing. The waves of mud hit with

such force that the geography of the region has been

changed profoundly.

Coming back to Asia, soon after the flooding in

Pakistan, Srilanka witnessed flooding which affected 1.25

million people. Over in Africa, severe drought caused

increasing hunger affecting 10 million people in four

countries. In Niger, the worst-affected country, 7.1

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233 million are hungry, with nearly half considered highly

food insecure because of the loss of livestock and crops

coupled with a surge in prices.

That was it! I was compelled to research this surge in

natural calamities, as I had began to realise that it’s time

we mend our way, or else, our future prospects would

seem dim, as best. My findings were catastrophic.

The UN had declared the year 2010 to be one of the

deadliest years for natural disasters in the past two

decades. 373 disasters had been recorded last year, of

which 22 were in China, 16 were in India, and 14 were in

the Philippines. Moreover, natural disasters caused $109

billion in economic damage last year, three times more

than in 2009, with Chile and China bearing most of the

cost.

I discovered that the emissions of carbon dioxide,

the principal greenhouse gas, scaled new peaks in 2009,

and 2010 was on course for becoming one of the three

warmest years on record. Moreover, the decade 2001-

2010 was stated to be the hottest ever.

However, something which amazed me was what

Christiana Figueres’s (head of the U.N. climate

secretariat) statement. He claimed that climate chaos

will also lead to wars among countries, meaning that one

could be at risk of danger from both, natural calamities

and man-made calamities.

Even after the biggest disaster of 2011 i.e. the

Japanese earthquake and tsunami which killed more

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234 than 12,000 and led to the worst nuclear crisis, where do

we stand? What have we done so far? The Kyoto

Protocol’s commitments run out at the end of 2012, and

Japan has bluntly refused calls to extend it tentatively.

The treaty only requires wealthy nations to cut

emissions, but the United States rejected it in 2001.

The much talked about Cancun conference

produced nothing concrete, except to meet in Durban,

South Africa in 2012. It was marred by protests by green

peace, the failure of the Copenhagen conference, and

internal rifts between developed and developing

countries. There were no carbon dioxide emissions

reduction targets to reach. However, each country could

pledge its own target, and the UN could check to see if

they are achieved.

The influx of 15,000 people attending the UN

conference left a massive carbon footprint. The Mexican

government puts the figure at 25,000 tonnes based on

emissions caused by flying people across the world,

busing them between conference venues, feeding them

and providing electric power. This carbon footprint was

equivalent to the output, over two weeks, from a small

African nation of the type the UN wants to save.

It is in Durban, South Africa, where the rich and the

poor have decided to meet again to decide your and my

future. However, whatever the results are, for the sake

of humanity and planet earth, I have already gone green.

Those of you who want planet earth to survive beyond

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235 2012, and prove the makers of the movie 2012 wrong,

please change the way you live.

Cut your carbon footprint, recycle as much as

possible, reduce your use of water and electricity, reuse

paper and plastic, use less heat and air conditioning, buy

energy-efficient products, plant tees, encourage others

to conserve, and do whatever you can to adopt a green

life style.

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/7703/armageddon-2012-will-the-world-succumb-to-climate-change/

Ravages of Rain

236 Arshed Rafiq

Fatal flaws in climate change policy

With several inherent flaws, the draft National Climate Change Policy is likely to suffer the same fate as its predecessors

‘A man asked a neighbourhood grocer for 25 kilogrammes of grain and said he would pay later. The grocer agreed and started weighing five portions of five kilos each. Each time he weighed, he weighed less than before. The fourth time, he stopped weighing and refused to lend any grain at all. Surprised, the man asked what was wrong. The grocer said he had watched no signs of anger on the man's face when he held back

some part of the grain, and that meant he had no intention of paying back."

Like the borrower in this folktale, Pakistan is quick to join all kinds of treaties, international peace keeping missions and multinational and bilateral agreements. The progeny of these agreements are a large set of policies, strategies and action plans made after "much consultation with all the relevant stakeholders".

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237 The latest in the series is the first draft of the

National Climate Change Policy (NCCP) of Pakistan, sent to the federal cabinet for approval in the second week of May.

The fate of this policy may already have been sealed,

like that of the preceding National Environmental Policy of 2005, National Drinking Water Policy of 2009, Clean Development Mechanism, National Operational Strategy, and many others. All these policies failed because of the absence of an implementation framework, poor communication with the stakeholders and a number of socio-economic ground realities.

Look at the results of our Clean Development

Mechanism (CDM). According to Climate Connect, a UK based company which provides technical services to companies on clean technology and carbon markets, "Only 11 projects from Pakistan have been registered with UNFCCC since the introduction of CDM and a total amount of $273 million has been invested in these projects, which is just 0.27 percent of the total spending by countries in Asia and Pacific region".

This is despite the fact that CDM is one of the best opportunities offered to developing and cash strapped countries like Pakistan by the international climate regime.

Prima facie, there are inherent flaws in the development mechanism of NCCP as well. First, the general public as an important stakeholder is alien to the

consultation process. To make an all encompassing

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238 climate policy, the wisdom of the crowds could have been invoked to identify important adaptation and mitigation measures already being practiced in various communities directly depending on natural resources and who are most affected during and after a natural or human induced disasters.

This needs comprehensive surveys in the communities and pooling of experiences of a broad range of NGOs and development agencies working on relevant themes.

The websites of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Ministry of Environment could also have been used besides social media networks to invite comments

and suggestions from informed sections of the public on the draft climate policy. Presently, these so-called "e-government tools" portray a dismal picture if one ventures to extract even the basic information on environment let alone the extensive one.

Second, under the 18th amendment, environmental protection has become a provincial subject. During this transition period, drafting of another national policy

would result in more confusions and delays in transfer of powers and responsibilities.

The fact that NCCP has been developed by Ministry of Environment, which itself stands dissolved after the 18th Amendment and the fate of its staff and functions is in disarray puts a question mark on the seriousness of the government to implement the recommendations

made in the policy.

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239 Third, NCCP "does not address the threat posed by

climate change to the country's socio-economic security", says Shakil Ahmad Ramay, scientist at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI), an Islamabad-based think tank working in liaison with National Task Force on Climate Change. This was quite

predictable as Pakistan's national security doctrines are based on military defence and are never developed or modified by civilian institutions. Conversely, there is little chance that climate induced socio-economic threats and conflicts are mapped in true sense to be incorporated in the country's defence and strategic policies in the foreseeable future.

SDPI further claims that "the desired operation of any climate change policy would only follow if there are certain institutional arrangements already in place. The forthcoming National Climate Change Policy of Pakistan overlooks this dimension and fails to give an adequate provision for implementation of the policy".

The proposed NCCP, as described to media, suggests some 120 policy measures for climate change mitigation

and adaptation. The adaptation measures are mainly focused on developing resilience of the agriculture and water and power sectors in spite of the fact that development and modification of infrastructure and urban development should be given an equal focus. The mainstreaming of climate debate in national curricula and national health programmes are not less important while the transition to low carbon economy under

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240 present national circumstances will also be an uphill task during the next couple of decades.

There is more focus on developing resilience and adaptation mechanisms and less on mitigation measures in the proposed NCCP. The increasingly and extremely

climate-vulnerable countries of South Asia and small island countries need to focus more on developing infrastructures for mitigation than on adaptation just as the Netherlands has done. There should be a paradigm shift in our urban development. The urban centres and cities need to be relocated away from seas and rivers to save them from hurricanes and floods. Where this is not possible, dykes can be built against the water

encroachment.

As usual, a need has been felt to develop newer institutions and to increase bureaucratic weight without raising efficiency of the existing ones through optimisation and it has been recommended to set up a national climate change commission to coordinate climate change activities and to monitor and assess emissions of greenhouse gases.

According to US EPA, the empirical evidence establishes climate induced impacts on five major areas. Therefore, the scope of the proposed climate change commission should not only be limited to monitoring atmospheric greenhouse gases composition but also to monitor and assess impacts on national and international climate and weather conditions, oceans, snow and glaciers and human society and ecosystems.

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241 Welcome steps at least theoretically are the promise

of "an increased investment in research for climate change mitigation and adaptation" and mainstreaming of climate change policy into other national and sectoral policies. The real question remains there as how this will be carried out. It must be realised that climate change is

an international phenomena and no country has the capacity or resources to deal with its impacts. Therefore, any of the proposed activities including research would involve international cooperation and should have global scale. Internally, a close cooperation of more than eleven ministries and some relevant bodies is needed for implementation of proposed measures.

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta2/tft/article.php?issue=20110930&page=6

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242 Naseer Memon

Effects of climate change Given recent experience, one could say that Asia is under the jinx of climate change and natural disasters. Extreme weather events with debilitating intensity and frequency have brought unprecedented misery for millions in the region.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) held its fifth Asia Regional Conservation Forum in Incheon, South Korea recently. It was attended by more than 500 delegates from different countries. Being there, I had the chance to interact with participants from neighbouring countries. The poignant tales of rain, floods, disasters and the plight of affectees were almost

similar from all the countries represented. Recent disasters experienced in Pakistan are no exception to what is happening in the region. Rising unpredictability and intensity of extreme weather events have confounded decision-makers and researchers everywhere.

The manner in which extreme weather events have affected people in parts of Asia can be gauged from a

few recent examples. In August, Bangladesh received

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243 750mm of rain which affected nearly 200,000 people in Rajshahi. In the southeast, more than 50 people were killed due to landslides and floods while Siraiganj lost crops over 3,000 hectares and more than 20,000 people were left homeless in Cox’s Bazar and Teknaf district. In India, more than 3,000 villages of Orissa state were

inundated, affecting more than two million people of which 130,000 had to be evacuated. In Bihar, rivers burst their banks after receiving the highest flow since 1975. In New Delhi, a cloud burst broke a 50-year record of rainfall within a single hour.

Similarly, Seoul in South Korea received more than 300mm rainfall in one day, the largest single-day rainfall

during July recorded since 1907. In January, Sri Lanka witnessed rains that affected nearly a million people. Climate change is predicted to render major tea-growing areas of Sri Lanka unsuitable for the crop by 2050.

In Thailand, thousands of homes were damaged and hundreds of thousands of acres of crop land was inundated due to heavy showers. In June, rains pounded six provinces of China forcing the evacuation of 0.35

million people and damaging some 33,000 houses. Water level in the Qiantang River rose to the highest level in more than 50 years.

One thing is common in all cases: past data has become almost redundant in predicting the weather pattern and planning against its impacts. Given that Pakistan is located in this zone too, it is also bearing the brunt of the climate change phenomenon. Last year, the

country witnessed an unusual shift of the monsoon from

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244 the easterly to the westerly region. This year, the lower half of Sindh received record-breaking rains. Rainfall in lower Sindh averages between 200 to 250mm, which normally occurs from July to August.

This year it came in September and the districts of

Mirpurkhas, Badin and Shaheed Benazirabad received 810, 680 and 640mm of rain respectively – way beyond the normal averages. Badin received 297mm of rain just in two days, on Aug 11 and 12, which buffeted hundreds of villages along main artery of the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD).

The overall damages surpassed last year’s figures. Due to Sindh’s flat topography, the province has only

200mm fall for little more than a kilometre, as a result of which gravitational drainage to the Arabian Sea is retarded even under normal circumstances.

Incessant rain turned into a nightmare due to the pooling of water, while faulty infrastructure also compounded the gravity of the disasters. The aforementioned countries’ experiences suggest that ill-planned infrastructure, particularly in the irrigation and

highways sectors, and the unregulated sprawl of human settlements, have multiplied the lethal impact of disasters. Pakistan experienced this in the earthquake of 2005 and the floods of 2010 and 2011.

The rapid assessment of the disaster caused by Cyclone Yemyin in 2007 in Balochistan and Sindh identified the Mirani dam barrier, inadequate cross

drainage works and unbridled settlements obstructing

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245 natural waterways as major causes of havoc caused by reverse flow. In 2010, encroachments in river plains were identified as a major contributing factor that exacerbated the effects of the floods. This year, the LBOD again dictated the lessons of the cyclone of 1999 and the rain floods of 2003: on all three occasions, the

LBOD was identified as a major barrier in the flow of rainwater to the Rann of Katch.

The climate change rollercoaster suggests that the entire infrastructure and administrative web may need to be supplanted in the wake of the new manifestations. Prominent climate change campaigner Al Gore, said: “The rules of risk assessment are being rewritten right

before our eyes. This year alone, in the United States we have had $10bn-plus disasters.” What Al Gore said with reference to the US is true for much of the world now.

Pakistan’s irrigation and drainage networks are also victim to the inadequacy to manage abnormal flows. The LBOD drain, for example, has a design discharge of 4,000 cusecs but this year it had to bear 18,000 cusecs.

This caused a number of breaches in the drain and

reverse flows in the hundreds of kilometres-long connecting network of drains. Similarly, the administrative web was vitiated by the intensity of the disaster which required several million souls to be evacuated within days and settled in camps.

The provincial and district level disaster management authorities are neither sufficiently equipped to nor skilled

in managing such a scale of operations. Pakistan has

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246 recently moved up from 29th in 2009-10 to number 16 on the Climate Change Vulnerability Index. The frequency of intense weather events warrants dexterous overhauling of the infrastructural and administrative set-up. The coming years may prove even more excruciating for communities in Pakistan and elsewhere in Asia.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/23/effects-of-climate-change.html

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247 Usman Qazi

Freak weather, freakier management

Pakistan is far from being geared up to face the unusual calamities that climate change will bring

For Pakistanis, the climate change is no more some mystical phenomenon of melting icebergs in some desolate arctic region. The deceptive option of brushing climate change away as a fanciful mathematical model developed by some mad scientist in a laboratory in a developed country.

The hapless 20 million flood ravaged people from last year and the 5 million plus affected by this year's freak weather phenomenon in Southern Pakistan perhaps do not realise this, but they have earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first batch of mass victims of climate induced disasters.

The discussion in the mass media and the legislative bodies is marked by a tendency to shift blames upon one or the other public sector entities - WAPDA, Met Department, NDMA, Irrigation Department etc - but there is no denying the fact that this year's rains in Southern Sindh were a most unprecedented spell where, in some places, the rainfall exceeded the median

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248 precipitation levels from the last hundred years by a thousand times, and that too in a very short span of time. The areas inundated by rains are officially classified as arid zones that receive minimal rainfall in a "normal" year.

The climate scientists are yet to reach a consensus on what is causing the climate to change in such a rapid manner. Theories seeking to explain the freak weather patterns range between cosmic activity in outer space to human induced carbon emissions. Arguably, the factors causing the climate change are beyond the control of most countries of the world, particularly Pakistan, which is not quoted very often as a paragon of maintaining internationally acclaimed causes related to "soft" issues such as environment and human rights.

Pakistan has no choice but to prepare itself for mitigating - and responding to - the impacts of disasters that are more likely than not to occur.

The statement that Pakistan never learns from history has become a cliche unto itself and is not even pondered upon anymore. In the area of climate induced disasters however, the government and the society at large can no longer afford to treat this as a cliche. The ruination of millions of lives as a result of the past two disasters is already showing its effects on the economy and the social fabric which is imminent to negatively influence the already fragile political and security environment. The government's institutional set up to respond to disasters is far from being geared up to face calamities of this type. The National Disaster Management Act, the guiding law for such situations and

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249 the other supporting pieces of regulation provide fairly adequate provisions for disaster response.

The implementation of the laws however, often becomes victim to political and bureaucratic whims and machinations. One of the reasons behind this malady is the absence of a culture of knowledge-based planning and evidence-based implementation. An overview of public sector financial allocations for the area of disaster risk reduction and preparedness presents a most discouraging picture. Empirical evidence from all over the world suggests that a penny invested in risk reduction and preparedness saves at least 7.5 pennies at the time of response.

It is a pity that the last year's flood did not cajole the policy makers into reconsidering their allocative decisions for this year and the pathetic outcome is here for us all to see.

It is important to remind the policy makers and disaster managers in this country that the baseline assumptions used (if ever) for contingency planning and preparedness are out dated in an era of discernible climate change. This and the last year's flood prove that the worst case scenario can be much worse than what the historical data suggests. The newly emerging stark reality should make us realise the importance of investing in mapping and modelling that take into account extreme weather events, to help us not be unpleasantly surprised in future.

It also needs to be realised at all levels that the disasters do not adhere to administrative boundaries.

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250 The institutional mandates however have to be geographically defined, essentially for peace time. The issue of disaster risk however, needs to be viewed holistically.

The flood protection infrastructure, for instance, cannot afford to be maintained in one area but neglected in the other area, merely shifting the hazard geographically. In the aftermath of devolution of ministries to the provinces, the legislators, policy makers and the civil society need to collectively ponder on how to mitigate climatic hazards across administrative -sometimes international- boundaries without compromising on the principles and spirit of decentralisation.

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta2/tft/article.php?issue=20110930&page=9.3

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251 Jawed Ali Khan

Climate change disasters in Pakistan and its consequences

Pakistan is located in the most vulnerable region, which is prone to intense climate change and natural disasters due to its diverse range of terrain stretching cylindrically from the Arabian Sea to the Himalayan peaks.

The country is susceptible to wide-ranging hazards from droughts to floods to earthquakes to cyclones. Pakistan has been suffering from a major drought for the last four years, which is unfortunately continuing with varying degrees all over the country. With the exception of drought years, Pakistan has suffered almost every year from floods as monsoon rains cause rivers to overflow their banks. Almost all of Pakistan regularly experiences earthquakes ranging from moderate to severe in intensity. In addition, the coastal areas of the country are prone to cyclones.

Climate Change Vulnerability Index (CCVI) by Maple Croft ranked Pakistan in 2009-2010 as 29 but in 2010-2011 it changed to 16, which shows that Pakistan is more

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252 vulnerable to disasters. If proper measures are not taken the cost of adaptation are likely to increase in the next few years. Adaptation costs in year 2010 was 5.75 billion US$, while losses of floods were estimated to be 5 per cent of GDP alone in the same year, and these adaptation costs are likely to be more than 10 per cent in the next 40 years ranging from $13-40 per capita. The climate disaster adaptation costs are proposed to $ 2.03, 2.72, 3.76 billion depending on the frequency of disasters low, medium, and high respectively during 2010-2050 (NEEDS, 2011).

Disaster management is the organisation and management of resources and responsibilities for dealing with all humanitarian aspects of emergencies, in particular preparedness, response and recovery in order to lessen the impact of disasters. The World Disaster Management Day is therefore a crucial reminder for the policy and decision makers as well as all the other stakeholders and the nation as a whole because all institutions and individuals have to play their role in averting and containing the threats.

The climate change is no more a myth as scientific evidences as well as occurrence of frequent floods, cyclones and droughts around the world have proved beyond doubt that it is real. The fluctuations that occur from year to year, and the statistics of extreme conditions such as severe storms or unusually hot seasons, are part of the climatic variability. Some slowly changing climatic phenomena can last for whole seasons or even years; the best known of these is the El Nino phenomenon.

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253 The difference now is that global temperatures have

risen unusually rapidly over the last few decades. There is strong evidence of increase in average global air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising average global sea levels.

The IPCC Fourth Assessment Report concludes that the global warming is unequivocal. Atmosphere and ocean temperatures are higher than they have been at any other time during at least the past five centuries, and probably for more than a millennium. The IPCC has examined the published results from many different models and on the basis of the evidence has estimated that by 2100: the global average surface warming (surface air temperature change), will increase by 1.1 6.4 °C; the sea level will rise between 18 and 59 cm; the oceans will become more acidic.

In the recent decades the temperature over Pakistan has witnessed accelerated jumps in temperature compared to the global change in temperatures: the temperature of 53.7 degree Celsius in Mohenjo-Daro broke the previous world records in May 2010 by breaking the last highest temperature recorded in 1919 with 53 degree Celsius in Jacobabad, a severe cyclonic storms Phet hit the Arabian Sea in May 2010 and the Gonu & the Yamyin hit the Arabian Sea, which is very rare phenomenon in the history of the Arabian Sea.

In 2007, temperature in Lahore broke the record of 78 years; it is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent. It is very likely that there will be more precipitation at higher latitudes and there will be less

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254 precipitation in most subtropical land areas and it is likely that tropical cyclones like typhoons and hurricanes will become more intense, with larger peak wind speeds and heavier precipitation associated with ongoing increases of tropical sea surface temperatures. Realizing the threats and challenges, the Government of Pakistan is in the process of finalising the National Climate Change Policy and Disaster Management Plans, which will surely help in addressing the threats posed by climate change and natural disasters in the near future.

Jawed Ali Khan, Director General (Climate Change and Environment), Planning and Development Division

http://www.thenews.com.pk/TodaysPrintDetail.aspx?ID=71543&Cat=6

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255

Thatto Declaration on

“Climate Change Impacts and Adaptations in the Coastal

Belt of Pakistan”

(This declaration was adopted by the participants of the conference on “Vulnerabilities of the Poor to Climate Change Impacts in Pakistan", held on Thursday 22 December 2011 at the Makli Gymkhana in Thatta. The conference was attended by a number of experts from civil society organizations, development professionals, donors/support organizations, Government departments, UN organizations, research institutes, media and concerned citizens.

Conference was attended by more than 150 concerned participants highlighted continuous onslaughts of climate change in the form of recent cyclones, floods, heavy rains and flashfloods which have affected millions of people of Sindh Coastal belt region. They called on the Government to pursue ambitious agenda to tackle climate change impacts on country. It was resolved that grave challenges are faced by the vulnerable poor across Pakistan as a result of disasters caused by climate change (mountain areas, deserts, irrigated plains and coastal areas); and that a

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256 result based strategy for climate change adaptation and preparedness must be formed and followed.)

We, the participants of the national conference on “Vulnerabilities of the Poor to Climate Change Impacts in Pakistan", held in Thatta on 22 December 2011, issue the declaration of actions to be taken up by the Government and all other relevant institutions in order to pave way for adaptation of climate change strategy for the Sindh coastal areas.

We, over 200 participants (representing Non-Governmental Organizations, development professionals, donors/support organizations, Government departments, UN organizations, research institutes and media),

recognizing that we share one planet and its environment, as well as a responsibility to protect future generations

recognizing the special vulnerabilities of the indigenous, poor, coastal and rural populations

having reviewed the latest scientific evidence from a wide variety of experts as well as hearing about the experiences of indigenous peoples to better understand climate change, its threats and how concerned organizations / institutions can broaden the base for knowledge and action to reduce those threats; make the following declaration:

1. We affirm that climate change is mainly anthropogenic (mad-made) and is one of the most

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257 serious threats humanity and our environment have ever faced which if not addressed will cause:

a. catastrophic effects to Earth’s ecosystems, biodiversity and infrastructure;

b. significantly reduced availability of food, water, energy and transport;

c. massive migration of populations and the possible destruction of entire cultures and small island nations,

d. significant damage to our economic, political, cultural, social and faith-based structures,

e. increased local, national and international violence,

f. significant psychological and emotional distress to individuals and communities,

g. irreversible harm to the lifestyles of indigenous peoples,

h. increased spread of vector-borne diseases such as malaria and dengue fever, and

i. negative impacts on human health and life expectancy.

2. We commit ourselves over the next 12 months to a Framework for Action that will propose NGOs solutions to these threats before they become irreversible:

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258 a. unify behind a common vision of collaboration –

even if we disagree on tactics -- to develop and implement plans for adaptation and mitigation taking into account the full range of consequences;

b. act as vocal, active partners for change with the UN, governments at all levels, NGOs and other members of our global community; and

c. develop, implement and publicize individual and collaborative action plans for personal, economic and political change.

3. We commend Governments’ decentralization policy under the 18th Amendment in the National Constitution. This will ensure localization of water and environment sectors and will eventually give space to the federating units to strategize and develop their own policies related to climate change based natural disasters.

4. We further urge government, line departments and industrial sector, in partnership with the civil society to emphasize proactive climate change priorities for the greater good in line with the international commitments made by the Pakistan Government.

5. We strongly recommend, for the sake of future generations, that government and industry leaders, international organizations including the UN system and the whole of civil society partners should implement concrete solutions, taking into account recommendations that emerge from this conference.

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259 6. Conference unanimously resolved that multiple

sectors including bad governance, weak institutional intervention and poor infrastructure are the main factors effecting resources, livelihoods and people in general.

7. We note that following gapes prevail in the systems and our society that hinder proper efforts to mitigate climate change:

a. Weak political will (resulting into weak policy planning, timely actions, negotiations at the international level);

b. Centralized decision making;

c. Lack of financial resources;

d. Weak technical capacity and old infrastructure;

e. Lack of awareness and understanding at the local level; and

f. Weak understanding of Roles and Responsibilities of difference stakeholders and lack of accountability mechanisms.

In the backdrop of this, we consider the following measures to be required:

(1) Government should place greater focus on the capacities of the institutions linked to climate change adaptation for mitigating and adapting to the impacts of climate change, and improve integrating their contributions into national and international climate strategies and policies,

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260 (2) Government should establish adequate legislative,

administrative and institutional frameworks at national and/or Provincial level for Climate Change Adaptation, equip these with appropriate competences, and provide adequate funding and staff for the administration of related initiatives and their functions,

(3) The Government should ensure “Mainstreaming of Disaster Risk Reduction”. This should involve reordering:

a. Education sector

b. Health sector

c. Existing environmental assessment tools and planning mechanisms

d. Governance at local level

e. Formal and informal employment and livelihoods

f. Agriculture sector

g. Gender

h. Information and Communication Technologies

i. Policy and Planning to Build the Capacity to Respond

j. Physical measures

(4) Role and Response of Stakeholders in the natural disasters should be made public and an accountabil-ity mechanism should be ensured.

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261 (5) In view of flood disaster, effectiveness of DDMA

should be enhanced and compulsory training of line departments should be ensured at the district level.

(6) System for information and communication on health, education and productive & basic infrastruc-ture at the district level should be strengthened.

(7) Community-based approaches to Disaster Risk Man-agement should be addressed and strengthened.

(8) Civil society organizations should integrate their pro-grams regarding climate change and strategize col-lectively.

(9) Concerned organizations and individuals should form a multi-sector electronic “Network on Climate Change and Disaster” to strengthen debate, bridge communication gape and combine efforts on climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Conclusion

Environmentalists, Human and Civil Rights Activists, and concerned members of the civil society demanded for bold and timely actions from the Government.

The conference participants call for the provision of ade-quate financial, organizational and staff capacities to implement the recommendations contained in this Declaration.

After a day-long discussion, the Government once again failed today to provide the inspiration and ambition to tackle climate change and provide hope for people across the country who suffer and will continue to suffer from climate-related impacts.

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262

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263

Comments, Blogs and Interviews

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264

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265 Rina Saeed Khan

Flooding and drought will become the norm

Scientists now agree that greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet and expect this will lead in future to more evaporation of water, moister air and heavier rainfall

When the torrential rain started coming down in Sindh this monsoon season causing extensive flash flooding, environmentalists in the country were not surprised. They had been warning for a couple of years now that due to climate change, floods and droughts were to become the norm. "These sort of floods are one of the predicted impacts of climate change according to the 4th Assessment Report of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that came out in 2007 ", explains Shafqat Kakakhel, a former UNEP official who now serves on the Pakistan government's Advisory Group on Climate Change.

"When I was asked last year after the floods of 2010 whether there was a possibility of recurrence, my reply was that there is no guarantee. Climate change is clearly

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266 disrupting the meteorological cycle. And we can see the manifestation in the form of flooding."

Scientists now agree that greenhouse gas emissions are warming the planet and expect this will lead in future to more evaporation of water, moister air and heavier rainfall.

"If we look at the frequency and the trend of the extreme weather events impacting Pakistan then it is easy to find its linkage with climate change," says Dr Qamar uz Zaman Chaudhry, the former head of Pakistan's Meteorological Office and currently Advisor to the Ministry of Defence on Climate Change (since the federal Ministry of Environment has now been devolved). He added that the pattern of recent extreme weather events in Pakistan show clear indication of the increased frequency and intensity of such events, which is in line with international climate change projections.

Dr Qamar, who was the lead author of the National Climate Change Strategy, which is yet to be approved by the cabinet, said the rains in Sindh are the highest ever recorded monsoon rains during the four weeks period. Before the start of these rains, Sindh was actually facing severe drought conditions.

A Task Force on Climate Change was set up by the government back in 2009 to advise them on the impacts of climate change in the country. The Task Force finalised their report and handed it over to the government in February 2010, long before last year's flooding. In the section on 'Past and expected future climate changes over Pakistan' the report says: "It is projected that

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267 climate change will increase the variability of the monsoon rains and enhance the frequency and severity of extreme events such as floods and droughts".

The report formed the basis of the National Climate Change Strategy, which has now been put on hold since the Ministry of Environment has been disbanded and it still unclear as to who will do the implementing of the strategy. Experts say the real work has to be done at the provincial level, but the planning must be done at the federal level. Many of the functions of the Ministry of Environment have now been transferred to the Planning Division. All these delays have meant that to date Pakistan has no action plan ready. In the mean time, neighbouring countries like Bangladesh, India and Nepal have all come up with climate change action plans that are being implemented.

According to Shafqat Kakakhel, "We can see how the monsoon is becoming more chaotic, erratic and unpredictable. Either it is coming too late or too soon or there is too much rain. What the country really needs are standard operating procedures for disaster risk reduction. In Bangladesh they have FM radios advising people about flooding and people know exactly where to run to for safety. We need to have plans right down to the district level."

In his view this year's flooding in Sindh was not as bad as the "big floods" that hit Pakistan last year. "These were flash floods, but because of the lack of infrastructure, the impacts were as bad as a big flood. The impacts could have been reduced if the government had taken the right steps." The National Disaster

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268 Management Authority had in fact prepared an elaborate strategy with the help of the UN agencies to prepare for flooding, but unfortunately the strategy was just not implemented.

"It just remained a strategy. There was an absence of political commitment - and a lack of financial resources, poor governance, serious resource constraints etc". What the country desperately needed was a detailed adaptation plan after last year's floods, which should have been implemented months before this year's monsoon rains. But as Shafqat Kakakhel points out, "This is a dysfunctional state - nothing seems to be working".

Rina Saeed Khan is a freelance journalist based in Islamabad

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta2/tft/article.php?issue=20110930&page=2

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269 Shahzad Raza

Unprepared Pakistan faces fury of Mother Nature

While Sindh submerges, the National Assembly speaker demands abolishing of National Disaster Management Authority, and National Climate Change Policy awaits government's approval

Better abolish the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), writes National Assembly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza to Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. There is no reply so far. The speaker hails from Badin, the worst flood-hit district in Sindh province. She believes the organisations like NDMA are defaming the People's Party government.

The letter shows her anger and frustration over what she calls the poor performance of the NDMA. She deplores the poor response of the authority to provide immediate relief to the homeless people. Khurram Ahmed, the NDMA Spokesman, differs with the idea of abolishing the authority. He says the authority was established under an act of Parliament and enjoys the mandate of the elected representatives.

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270 He defends the NDMA saying the disasters are

occurring all over the world with an unprecedented rate. He argues the Met Office had predicted 10 percent less rain in Sindh compared to last year. And the NDMA prepared itself according to the Met Office predictions. He says the NDMA post disaster efforts are extraordinary as it mobilised 166,000 tents to provide shelter to the homeless people of Sindh. The calamity Pakistan faces is beyond imagination.

End of Mayan Calendar or abnormal galactic alignment: Pakistan does not require a cataclysmic activity for devastation beyond imagination. The process seems to have already begun and, though gradual, is getting momentum. Erratic rainfalls break the long dry spells. The flash floods engulf the entire country. And drought takes over as soon as flood water recedes. This recent spate of natural disasters is some isolated occurrences or are they an ominous forbidding of graver happenings to come?

Dr. Qamaruzzaman Chaudhry, Federal Advisor on Climate Affairs and Vice President of World Meteorological Organisation, tries to find the answer. The conclusions are horrific, but not entirely uncontainable. In an interview with TFT the author of country's first National Climate Change Policy (NCCP) shares his scientific observations and thoughts on the challenge more threatening than terrorism or extremism.

Recent spell of monsoon rains caused severe flooding in the 20 out of 22 districts of Sindh province. The rains and floods have claimed more than 230 lives and rendered over five million people homeless. They

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271 damaged or destroyed over one million housing units. The figures released NDMA reveal that nearly four Million acres of land is inundated and 1.7 million acres of cropped land has been submerged destroying 80 percent of banana, dates, chili, sugarcane and cotton crops.

"Pakistan is heading for increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, which includes frequent floods and droughts. We need to adapt and plan for that," the advisor says. Compared to last year Sindh province received 1,170 percent more rains in September. The total volume of water fallen over Sindh during the four dreadful weeks is estimated to be above 49 million acre feet or equal to the capacity of six Tarbela Dams.

Dr Chaudhry predicts the climate change would cause considerable increase in frequency and intensity of extreme weather events coupled with erratic monsoon rains causing frequent floods and droughts. Can Pakistan mitigate the intensity of calamities? Is it prepared for large scale disaster management? Does the government handle the matter as top priority? Unfortunately, the answer to all these questions is a big emphatic NO.

Leading meteorologists and experts deliberated for nine months to help author the policy. Now it lies at some bureaucrat's desk awaiting a nod from the federal cabinet. Given the unkindness of the nature what are the government priorities? So far the vast subject of climate change is dealt under the environment policy. The inadequacies are obvious and the inactions inherent. The absence of NCCP also restricts the government to seek international assistance from the recently established "Green Climate Fund."

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272 The TFT obtained a draft copy of the NCCP which

says: "The (climate change) threats are the cause of major survival concerns for Pakistan, particularly in terms of country's Water Security, Food Security and Energy Security considerations." Besides erratic monsoon, intense floods and severe droughts, Pakistan faces recession of Hindu Kush-Karakoram Himalayan glaciers, siltation of major dams, increased temperature, intrusion of saline water in Indus delta, threat to coastal areas, rise of sea level and increased health risks.

The NCCP declares global warming as the most critical reason of the adverse climate change in Pakistan.

Dr Chaudhry proposes a two-pronged approach involving "Adaptation" and "Mitigation" under yet-to-be-approved NCCP. He says the countries like Pakistan should focus more on adaptation in climatic change while not entirely ignoring the Mitigation approach. On climate change adaptation, the draft NCCP observes that Pakistan's contribution to the total global greenhouse gas emission is among the lowest but it is among the countries most vulnerable to climate change.

It says the projected climate change has serious implications for Pakistan's water resources. It would have adverse effects on the spatial and temporal distribution of water resources on annual and inter-annual basis in the country. It demands an improved water storage infrastructure and ambitious water conservation strategies. The policy calls for developing and adopting a "National Water Security Plan of Pakistan." It proposes enactment and enforcement of strict laws dealing with waste management and water management.

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273 The most likely impacts of climate change would be

decreased forests' productivity, changes in species composition, reduced forest areas, unfavourable conditions for biodiversity and, of course, higher flood risks and soil erosion.

The draft NCCP reads that mountainous regions of Pakistan are extremely vulnerable to adverse climate change. Increase in frequency and intensity of precipitation would result in flash floods and landslides, increase in intensity of wind storms and lightening would cause soil erosion and forest fires and increase in temperature would lead to rapid glaciers melting.

The policy highlights an important role Pakistan plays in maintaining regional ecological processes that support global biodiversity such as bird migration routes and wintering grounds. A dramatic change in the ecosystem of the wetlands in Pakistan, in the last 10 years, deteriorated its ability to provide friendly habitat for waterfowl, shorebirds and migratory birds.

The policy also proposes various socio-economic and administrative measures. It asks the federal government to develop an Action Plan for its implementation. The NCCP recommended the constitution of implementation committees at the federal and provincial levels. One important task of these committees is to monitor and upgrade the NCCP at an interval of five years.

Shahzad Raza is TFT special correspondent based in Islamabad. He can be reached at s79r@hotmail.com

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta2/tft/article.php?issue=20110930&page=4.1

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274 Ali K Chishti

Submerged in incompetence

Skies clear over Sindh to reveal the magnitude of destruction and the incompetence of its disaster management authority

Sindh's Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) was formed after the tragic earthquake in 2005 to establish and regulate an enhanced and progressive disaster management framework (including mitigation, preparedness and response) at the provincial and local levels.

Six years later, have any of these goals been met? "No," says Yousaf Talpur, an influential MNA from Sindh who has recently emerged as the biggest critic of the provincial government and the PDMA for its poor performance after the devastation caused by rains and floods in Sindh. A senior provincial secretary who wished not to be named said the authority was "highly corrupt, lacks monitoring and planning, and does not have contingency plans". He said the death of more than 360 flood victims in the province should be blamed on the PDMA, because it did not have a plan to deal with it.

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275 In what have been called the worst floods in Sindh's

history, 1.2 million homes were destroyed and 5.3 million people displaced. About 1.7 million acres of arable land are now under water. Many of the victims blame the government for their misfortune.

"If the government had told us that floods were likely, we would have moved to safer places," said Muhammad Murad, a 38-year-old displaced farmer from Thar. Two of his children died because of the floods. "We blame the government and no one else."

Qaim Ali Shah, the chief minister, has recently announced a Rs1 million government assistance to each flood victim and set up a toll-free helpline. "We are trying our best," he said. "Let me admit we didn't initially realise the magnitude of the floods ourselves." Asked if that was the job of the PDMA, he said "action would be taken" against those found negligent. "We will make sure we are prepared for future floods."

In 2010, the PDA had met to make a plan for the restoration of damaged water supply and sewerage lines in the areas that are now under water. The meeting was supervised by its director general Saleh Farooqi and secretary Laiq Ahmed. But little got done. Money, according to a disgruntled insider, "was spent on SUVs and renovating luxurious offices instead".

International donors had also been wary because of corruption and incompetence. Most of them donated to private relief efforts. The UN has announced $10 million for Sindh's flood victims, Iran announced another $10 million, China $4.7 million, and Japan promised 35

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276 million yens. "None of that money is going to the PDMA, which both foreign agencies and the Sindh government believe is incompetent," said Jonathan Hews, an NGO worker based in Karachi who has been monitoring flood relief. "The authority had been out there doing nothing for all these years."

There have been calls for strengthening of provincial and district disaster management authorities, but the recent events have also stressed the need for broader coordination on the complete spectrum of disasters in the provinces to formulate risk management plans, and monitoring of risks and hazards. "The chief minister would not have to visit each flood-hit town personally. He could have monitored various locations simultaneously if there had been scientific data and a mapping system."

But Sindhi leaders Ayaz Palejo and Jalal Mehmood Shah think it would be better to restore the old office of relief commissioner instead. "PDMA has become a ceremonial body and its functions are being overlapped by political decisions," said Prof Najam Ahmed of Karachi University. He said the authority was not coordinating with sister organisations and had played a limited role in flood relief. "Perhaps they only consider war a disaster."

Ali Chishti is a TFT reporter based in Karachi. He can be reached at akchishti@hotmail.com

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta2/tft/article.php?issue=20110930&page=4.2

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277 Erum Haider

The mathematics of disaster

Can anyone – anyone at all – in this country do some simple math?

The Pakistani premier, Yusuf Raza Gilani (whom I imagine all those wonderfully enlightened Zardari-bashers will vote for in the next election, given how badly they wanted someone on the ground, overlooking the relief efforts… what’s that? You don’t vote at all?) has said that 132,000 square kilometers of Pakistani territory has been affected by these floods.

According to Wikipedia, Pakistan’s total territory cover 803,940 km-sq. Sixteen percent of our total landmass is currently inundated with water. And that’s just KP and Punjab. By the time that flood hits Sindh, we could be looking at nearly a fifth of Pakistan being impacted.

Now imagine the entire population of New Delhi – spread over 132,000 square kilometers – suddenly in need of a new home, food aid, medicines and clothes. According to official estimates, up to 12 million people will be impacted by this flood. Comparisons to how well the army handled the 2005 earthquake relief efforts aren’t just wrong, they’re stupid. We’re not simply

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278 talking about houses being destroyed or roads being shut down. Over the next few days the Pakistani government will have to physically move tens of thousands of people from their homes to higher ground, to say nothing of the millions already displaced.

By way of reference, Hurricane Katrina displaced about one million people. CNN and BBC report 100,000 people caught directly in the flooding of New Orleans, and about 3 million people without electricity. The US government still faces criticism for the way in which low-income families in particular were impacted by the disaster.

So when Fatima Bhutto calls this flood “Zardari’s Katrina,” one can safely assume that a university education was entirely lost on her because she clearly cannot grasp even the rudiments of math.

However much the United State’s trillion-dollar economy reeled from the billions of dollars in damage, it will be nothing compared to the relative cost of crop, infrastructure and livelihood destruction during Pakistan’s floods.

Population boom and climate change aside, Pakistan typifies the fate of the developing world in its fragile balance on the edge of disaster. Every year floods in Bangladesh displace millions of people, yet no Bangladeshis line up on the streets of London to piss all over a democratically elected figure, no matter how flawed their judgment might be (or how many charges of corruption tail him or her). Let’s be very clear – any government faced with a disaster on this scale would need, at the very least, all the expertise and support it

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279 can get within its own country.

If you are a Pakistani, and you do know math, the important thing is to ask what is needed, immediately. There are commendable ongoing efforts to raise funds and gather aid, but what we definitely, desperately need is a rapid assessment of damage, which will require some expertise in flood management and humanitarian aid, but also concerted efforts to collect and share information.

And in that, we are perhaps better-off than we were in 2005. The few private channels at the time ran tickers of damaged areas and ran appeals for food and medicine aid. Now, with an enormous network of mobile phone users and thousands of media satellite offices spread across the country, it is possible to piece together a detailed disaster map for relief agencies and the government to use.

Additionally, we need a whole host of donors – not just the usual suspects such as America and Europe – but also some unusual suspects, like India, to pledge volunteers, expertise and support.

The scale of this flood makes it clear that disaster management in the future will no longer be the sole responsibility of one government. As developing states become increasingly economically fragile, more and more people live at high risk of an environmental disaster. Whether or not the Pakistani government could have done better remains to be seen because the flood has not even run its course, let alone receded. One cannot begin to hand out F-grades before we even sit the test.

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/1010/the-mathematics-of-disaster/

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280 Nuzhat Saadia Siddiqui

Notes from the flood zone

After the devastation of the 2005 earthquake, we should have come up with a disaster management plan - even a basic one.

This flood is worse than the 2005 earthquake because it is going to cause prolonged misery. First of all, all this water is a cesspool in the making. People have no clean drinking water. Do you know what they are doing? Drinking flood water. This is causing gastrointestinal problems. Stagnant water and mosquitoes will ultimately result in malaria. I am not medically qualified, so I can’t paint an accurate picture of the problems, but this is the gist of it all. Apart from that, it’s monsoon season, and we all know all kinds of bugs and insects come out during the rains.

In the affected areas, it is scorpions and snakes. They end up biting people, and people end up requiring shots that aren’t readily available in the medical relief camps.

Containing the damage

The true extent of damage to infrastructure,

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281 property, livestock, biodiversity and the environment at large will only be known once the water recedes enough for experts to conduct environmental impact surveys. For now, we can just pitch in, however we can, for the rescue and relief effort and make the best of it. And difference is being made:

After this long, tiring day I am happy to share that today the CIWC site office team of Pakistan Wetlands Programme provided more than 500 kilograms of livestock fodder for the stranded livestock in 7 livestock relief camps. These camps are temporarily established between Taunsa and Kot Addu in collaboration with Punjab livestock department, Muzaffar Garh. More than 150 kilograms of fodder was directly distributed in communities for stranded livestock. CIWC team also succeeded in provision of one trolley of livestock fodder to these camps by convincing a local landlord through negotiation and continuous coordination.

Today more than 8,000 anti-malarial and anti-histamine medicines were provided to temporarily established medical relief camps in collaboration of Punjab health department and local NGO Saiban Welfare Foundation. Very soon I will share the detailed report of what is happening and what we have contributed in relief and rescue activities at Kot Addu on behalf of WWF-Pakistan Wetlands Programme.” Zafar Ali, Kot Addu Office of WWF – Pakistan’s Pakistan Wetlands Programme

How floods have impacted animals

As far as animals are concerned. Just yesterday a

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282 colleague,Uzma Khan Director, Biodiversity at WWF and I were discussing how we will need to monitor all the canals and irrigation channels when the water recedes to find any stranded Indus Dolphins. One was already sighted near Sukkur Barrage, but the water flow was too heavy to get across to it. And people were more in need of support.

23 bears rescued from various areas in KP were being kept in a bear sanctuary at Kund Park in Swabi. Flood waters rose to about 60 feet in that area and they drowned. There are also reports of several caged birds at the same park drowning because no one thought of setting them free. I guess that’s what happens in time when disaster strikes and you don’t have a proper disaster management plan in place.

Disaster management plan, please

After the attack on the Ahmadi mosques, journalist Mosharraf Zaidi went a little berserk on Twitter. He kept Tweeting this: #counterterrorismstrategyplease. Over and over again.

Now, him Tweeting this may not have caught the attention of anyone in the government, but it actually made several people at least think about it, and raise the question about the fact that despite being the country that has paid the most for participating in a 9 years old hand-me-down ‘War on Terror’, we still don’t have a counter terrorism strategy.

So now, with the floods, I’m wondering if I should start tweeting #disastermanagementplanplease. Get others to do it too. After the devastation of the 2005

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283 earthquake, we should have come up with a disaster management plan – even a basic one. But we have nothing. And this is why there is a ‘trust deficit’ amongst people for NGOs and aid organisations. This is why people are reluctant to pitch in as ardently as they did after the earthquake hit us.

We know the problems, and we know our limitations. We know our own capacity to reach out and put right the things that have been tossed around and toppled by this disaster. With these notes from the field, I wish we would just forget everything else and reach out. And when at least there is a margin for us to sit back and breathe, I wish we would force our democratically elected ‘leaders’ into formulating a workable disaster management plan.

That, and a counter terrorism strategy, please.

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/1046/notes-from-the-flood-zone/

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284 Salman latif

Floods and selective silence in the blogosphere

As I write these lines, the latest reports put the death toll from floods at some 1,100 with 1.5 million affectees and some 100,000 plagued by diseases like cholera. Most of those affected are stranded at remote areas, away from safety, with no food or shelter or clean water and with no access to medical facilities. The waters still rage on and more villages are vulnerable to disaster, risking yet many more thousands of lives.

However, I am appalled by the utterly careless, stolid response of the Pakistan media in general and the blogosphere in particular towards this issue. While there has been post after post on the issue of Airblue plane crash, which I fully endorse, there has been deafening silence on the flood disaster. I have been desperately running from blog to blog but I have barely seen a post about it on any of the major blogs of Pakistan. Not only that, casual bloggers do not seem to give a damn either – if at all they have given the disaster a passive mention of sympathy in one-liners or short briefers.

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285 Is it a coincidence?

Are forums so overwhelmed with plane crash posts? Will the flood-posts be coming soon? I don’t think so. In this case our blogosphere, which is proudly cited as the chief tool of citizen journalism and free discourse, seems to be dragging along the same lines as the conventional media – those of sensational journalism. While the plane crash immediately caused hype and became the hot topic in media circles, millions of affectees are not worth a post!

There is a stark difference in our attitudes towards the two happenings – why the disparity? To me, the only thing that comes off as a sound reason is that the plane crash was a federal incident. It happened right in Islamabad, involved educated and well-off people and was immediately accessible by more or less every media outlet.

The inundated lands, on the other hand, are remote, largely inaccessible right now, and simply, a boring thing to report. Who wants to watch lives lost in a flood anyway? In this land of pure, the value of human lives certainly seems to differ from area to area and class to class.

Another thing that struck me while trying to decipher this conundrum was that maybe Pakistan’s online population, which is mostly based in either Karachi or Punjab’s developed regions, is too far away from the issue – literally. Why bother when our immediate circles or areas are unaffected?

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286 I admit this may be crude and perhaps I am being

harsh. But after hungrily searching blogs for information and opinion on the floods and relief efforts, this is the only valid argument I could come to. I must note here that there have been certain blogs making very laudable initiatives such as organizing relief camps and enlisting relief agencies (like Secular Pakistan and LUBP). But the online Pakistani populace, at large, is silent at the flood disaster. And that is a big disappointment to me.

I think it’s time to revise the basics of our blog ethics. Before this facet of blog-activism also relapses into the conventional waters of traditional media, we need to pause for a moment and think about whether or not it is going in the direction we were aspiring for? We will have our answer.

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/926/floods-and-selective-silence-in-the-blogosphere/

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287 Naureen Aqueel

Where do we stand? The Express Tribune website recently ran an online poll asking visitors if they had made an effort to help flood victims in the current crisis. The results were a clear indication of the state of apathy our society seems to be sinking into: 92 per cent responded with a “No”, while only eight per cent said “Yes”.

For most of us, our lives revolve around the little worlds we have created for ourselves. So it’s always my family, my friends, my career, my home and my job that occupy our time and attention. Seldom are we able to step out of our little worlds and give a thought to the problems of those around us. After all, with so much going on we hardly have the time, right?

We need to pause our fast-paced lives just for a moment and ask ourselves: didn’t most of us take up the careers we have and the jobs we do to make a positive contribution to society, each in our own capacities? But then, what happened along the way? When did we lose that vision and get caught up in the rat race we call life? Are we really so busy that we cannot spare a moment for our fellow citizens who need our help in difficult times?

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288 We can help them in many ways: by volunteering our effort and time, by contributing in cash, and yes, also with a small prayer.

The death toll from the floods across the country has crossed 1,500 with over three million affected. The number of people affected is nearly as much as those devastated by the 2005 earthquake which saw an extraordinary outpouring of national sentiment and aid. Now is the time to act. Maybe if we could generate the same sort of spirit that drove people in 2005 we could avert a bigger disaster. There are many ways to help. But the question is: Where do we stand?

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/954/where-do-we-stand/

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289 Amar Guriro

Monsoon Rains 2011: Stories of marginalised

‘Children of God’ refused relief:

As the Pakistan Meteorological Department predicts more rains in the days to come, the worst victims of rain and breaches in the monsoon-swollen Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) in Badin district – which brought rainwater from upper Sindh districts into Badin – the Pakistani Dalits or “untouchables” have been denied accommodation in relief camps due to their social positioning.

In the past month since monsoon-swollen drains and the LBOD burst its banks and caused one of the recent history’s worst catastrophic disasters, the so-called traditional bigotry has run just as deep as the floodwater. Despite torrential rain, a majority of these Hindu Dalits in Badin have been living under open sky as they are not allowed in the relief camps by Muslims.

More tragic has been the federal government’s ban on non-governmental organisations and international donors to work in these areas for “security reasons”, whereas the government itself is yet to start relief operations. The religious extremist organisations that

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290 have been providing relief in Badin have completely ignored the Dalits – or Harijans, which means “Children of God”.

Chanesar Bheel – a Dalit by social norms and a farmer by profession, resident of Goth Gomando Bheel in Ghado Union Council, Golarchi (Shaheed Fazil Rahu) Taluka – is one of around 700 Dalits of his village that have been living under open sky along the banks of Soorahdi Sakh Canal. “Our village is between the two drains, and during the rain, both burst and inundated our village from each side. We rushed to a nearby relief camp set up inside a government school, but the people did not allow us to live inside the camp, so we came here and started living under open sky,” Bheel told Pakistan Today. Bheel said the people living inside the camps told them that they were “untouchables” and were not allowed to live with Muslims. His village comprises 80 households with 700 people, all of whom are Dalits.

“This is not the only village of Dalits in the district that is living under the open sky. There are many more Dalits living in similar conditions on the Khoski Road, and in Seerani, Lonwari Sharif and other areas,” said writer/civil society activist Ameer Mandhro. A similar case occurred with the Dalits of Pibhu Kolhi village in Tando Bagho. “There is no place to go, so we are simply living outside the school under open sky. A kind-hearted man inside the camp allotted us an isolated classroom, which is away from the main building, where two families are living and the remaining villagers are living under open sky despite continued rain,” said a villager.

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291 He said some philanthropists came to provide food

to the residents of the relief camp, but they (the Dalits) were not given any ration and were cooking their own food. Dalits are social outcasts at the bottom of the Hindu caste ladder and are common in India, but this system has deep roots in Pakistan as well. Even the government of Pakistan has encouraged this prejudice by officially declaring these Dalits as “scheduled caste”. Despite its tall claims, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government has not nominated even a single Dalit for the Sindh Assembly seat.

All four PPP Hindu assembly members are from the so-called upper caste. Minority Affairs Minister Mohan Lal Kohistani has so far done nothing to provide relief to the affected Hindu population. When contacted, Kohistani said he was busy in a meeting at the Chief Minister’s House and would comment on the issue later. However, sources said the minister was trying to get a licence for a liquor shop from the competent authority, namely Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah. In the wake of last year’s floods and this year’s monsoon, Kohistani’s ministry has not set up even a single camp in the province to help Hindus, Christians or any other religious minority.

“These Dalits can’t even claim a seat in public transport. How do we expect them to get space in relief camps? It’s the same mentality,” said human rights activist Sameer Mandhro. He said not only the government, but the civil society organisations, who claim to work indiscriminately, are also ignoring the Dalits.

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292 Monsoon pours cold water on Dalit Hindus’ pilgrimage:

The recent catastrophic monsoon has postponed Hindu saint Rama Pir’s annual mela – the biggest gathering of Dalit Hindus in Pakistan – besides destroying standing crops, houses, bridges, schools and healthcare facilities; killing people, livestock and wildlife; and damaging heritage sites and government buildings.

Months ago, a large number of lower caste Hindus – or officially declared as scheduled caste Hindus by the Pakistani government – started walking several miles to participate in the three-day annual gathering or mela, which was supposed to start on Tuesday (today). However, Rama Pir Sheva Mandli in-charge Kaka Ishwar Das Utoomal announced on Monday that due to the recent torrential rains, the mela has been postponed and rescheduled.

Despite the devastation caused by the monsoon, a large number of Dalit Hindus have reached the town of Tando Allahyar, where the 400-year-old historical Rama Pir temple is located, and thousands are still on their way. Radha, a Hindu woman from the gypsy tribe Lohar – or locally known as Karia – is one of such thousands of Dalits who are heading towards the temple from different lower Sindh districts of Mirpurkhas division.

The recent catastrophic monsoon, which has caused floods due to breaches in drains and the Left Bank Outfall Drain in different districts of lower Sindh in Mirpurkhas division, has washed away Radha’s home and assets, but despite that, she has decided not to miss the holy pilgrimage. Diehard devotees of Rama Pir,

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293 Radha’s family is in the ironsmith profession and her husband runs a small hut-like shop where he makes spades, axes, ploughs and other equipments that are usually used by farmers on their agricultural fields.

However, the recent rains swept away that small shop and when more rainwater was inundating their small colony in the town of Pithoro, Radha prepared to leave for the holy walk. Every year, thousands of members of the Lohar, Kolhi, Meghwar, Bheel, Jogi and other Dalit communities start walking several miles to Tando Allahyar town where the annual religious gathering of Hindu saint Rama Pir is held.

Chanting holy hymns, white bands with religious slogans around their heads, and holding white flags printed with a moon, a star and a child’s footprint in red, these barefooted lower caste Hindus walk hundreds of miles every year from their houses in different districts of Mirpurkhas division to reach the town of Tando Allahyar. Hindus believe that when cruelty was on the rise across the world, Hindu god Lord Krishna was born on Earth as Ramdev Bhagwan who was later known as Rama Pir.

According to some followers, a wish of one of Rama Pir’s followers came true, so he built a huge temple in Tando Allahyar town where Rama Pir used to sit. Though Rama Pir is a Hindu saint, a large number of Muslims visit the shrine as well and are his devotees, demonstrating the traditional religious tolerance in the Sindhi society due to the presence of Sufism.In response to the announcement of postponing the mela, Hamtho Kolhi – who started walking from the town of Kunri, which is

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294 around 120 kilometres away from Tando Allahyar, and took 18 days to reach his destination – said that he would stay there for another month to attend the religious gathering. “It’s my fortune that I was able to walk so long to come here to the temple; and even if it takes one more year, I shall stay here,” he said.

Though the torrential rains continue in his village and washed away almost everything in his house, Kolhi is still satisfied. “Dado [Rama Pir] will manage the recovery of all these losses, so I’m not worried and have left all my worries for him [Rama Pir],” Kolhi, who has walked to participate in the mela for 18 years, said firmly. Hindus are the biggest religious minority in Pakistan, with 3 million as per the national census of 1998.

Majority of them live in Sindh and around 92 percent of them are called lower caste or Dalit communities, and this gathering is supposed to be the biggest gathering of Dalits, which is attended by some 1.5 million people. Nevertheless, despite such a huge gathering, the federal or provincial governments have done nothing for these lower caste Hindus; and despite being the poorest community in the country, they manage all arrangements by themselves.

http://amarguriro.com/?cat=101

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295 Faris Islam

Building communities to tackle disasters

As another monsoon season lashes Pakistan with

rain, much of interior Sindh is drowning once again. With

5.3 million people already affected and several districts

declared disaster areas, more rain is expected

throughout much of the province in the next few days.

Beyond these statistics however is the very real

human cost of the tragedy – families losing their homes

and livelihoods to floods, children lying in pain in the

throes of dengue fever and communities who inspired us

with their resilience after the 2010 floods once again

facing the wrath of Mother Nature. Unfortunately stories

of devastation from natural calamities like these are

becoming all too familiar for Pakistan. Beyond the

human-induced death and destruction that has

dominated headlines in the last decade; nature too has

played a role in the form of earthquakes, droughts,

landslides and floods.

Unfortunately, while elements of these disasters

may be beyond our control, the burdens of responding

to these disasters – and critiques thereof – are within our

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296 control. Events like earthquakes cannot be controlled or

even accurately predicted and while flooding and

droughts can be predicted with some degree of accuracy,

completely eliminating the threat of either would require

complete control over rain, which we can’t do.

We can however, and we must focus our efforts on

preparing and preventing these disasters as much as

possible but unfortunately we’re not.

Beyond Pakistan, through much of the developing

world, the response to natural disasters is reactionary –

responding to an event after it happens and trying to

provide relief and rehabilitation to those affected.

Unfortunately, with budgets stretched thin and the

regulatory power of the state often less than stellar, little

investment is made in preparing for a threat that is

perceived as far-off and unlikely. The sheer amount of

devastation faced by Pakistan since 2005 at the hands of

natural disasters should make it clear to us however that

this threat is neither far-off nor unlikely and that in the

long-run, prevention and preparation can save lives,

money and resources.

In addition to preparing our riverbanks and

floodplains, ensuring that our buildings can withstand

tremors taking steps to prepare hillsides against

mudslides; financial preparation too can make a lasting

difference. Both globally as well as nationally, there are

few funds set aside to deal with disasters. Instead, much

of the current model of paying for disaster recovery

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297 centers on passing around the begging bowl after the

fact – issuing an appeal and then waiting for funds to

trickle in. Unfortunately, this leaves our ability to fight

disasters vulnerable to variables like donor fatigue and

strapped budgets that we can ill afford.

Indeed, each and every citizen can play their role in

this by taking the time to prepare themselves for

emergencies in a multitude of small ways from putting

together a first aid kit to keeping an emergency stash of

drinking water to having some cash available. On a

community level too, there are tangible small steps that

can be taken to better prepare for emergencies –

ensuring that building codes are met, keeping pathways

clear for emergencies and just making sure that

neighborhood drains are cleaned out ahead of the

monsoon season.

While these are just a small sampling of

preparations offered by someone with no training or

experience in disaster management, they are unified by

a common theme – one that can go beyond disasters to

uplift communities – a common sense of purpose and a

determination to work together. As the Orangi Pilot

Project has shown, the power of a community

determined to make a difference and willing to work

hard should not be underestimated.

It is through building the strength of local

communities – empowering people at the lowest tier of

governance to come together and work together – that

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298 we have the most power to overcome both the greatest

disasters nature can throw at us as well as the daily trials

and tribulations of poor infrastructure, failing schools

and an unresponsive government.

Faris Islam studied Political Science and History at Tufts University. He is based in Karachi, where he works in the development sector.

http://www.dawn.com/2011/10/01/building-communities-to-tackle-disasters.html

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299 Rina Saeed Khan

Bad governance has accentuated the

Environment crisis

Ali Tauqeer Sheikh is the head of the NGO, Leadership in Environment and Development-Pakistan based in Islamabad and a member of the government's Advisory Group on Climate Change. In this interview with Rina Saeed Khan he describes how poor governance has exacerbated the problems caused by climate change given the two years of continuous monsoon flooding that have hit Pakistan

What role has climate change played in this year's flooding?

Climate change is the multiplier only - it is bad for everyone, especially the poor but it is even worse for the poor under bad governance. The present flooding in Sindh has affected all 23 districts, almost the entire province. The damage is deep - crops under water, houses destroyed people destitute. The poor have been the most vulnerable as they have been marginalised by the course of development. There has been no climate

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300 compatible development. Bad governance has accentuated the crisis.

Why did we not learn from last year's floods?

Our governance system did not derive any lessons from last year's floods. There is also a credibility gap - the international community did not come forward this year to help in the relief efforts.

The prime minister's fund only received around 1 million dollars, which is like a vote of no confidence. It is a sad comment on the credibility of the present government. In fact, the government was unable to spend last year's funds appropriately.

They used cash disbursements for political purposes. The relief phase from last year was not even over for the rehabilitation phase to begin before the floods began again this year. There was no vulnerability mapping of high-risk areas, no plans were put in place. When the floods hit, the civil administration collapsed and the military stepped in. While we are grateful to the military, it is a sad comment on the government's preparedness to deal with such disasters.

Why was there an absence of planning given that we have the NMDA?

The government created another mess by converting the ERRA into NERRA and did not clarify NERRA and NMDA's mandates. So the two institutions looked at each other and wondered who will take the lead? There was no climate compatible development reflected in the budget such as the availability of

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301 vaccines against malaria and typhoid and climate resilient housing plans. It was less a function of limited resources, more a function of bad planning. I don't think it was even a government priority to get ready for the floods this year.

How can Pakistan prepare for future flooding?

The question remains, how can we empower the provinces to respond to climate change? Can Pakistan really afford to have such bad governance in place when the next monsoon season arrives?

Last year the floods cost Pakistan 10 billion dollars, which is almost 10% of its GDP. The choice is Pakistan's - can it afford a 10 billion dollar loss every year? Unfortunately, our growth strategy has not commented on this.

Our growth strategy does not even discuss disasters such as the floods! It is an anti-poor strategy, which has a focus on urban areas, not rural areas. It is a soul less strategy. These kinds of floods will continue to cost us unless we have disaster preparedness infrastructure in place. We need to allocate resources in our annual budge to reduce vulnerability and enhance resilience. We need to invest in district level adaptation funds. CCBs should be revitalized and re-allocated adaptation funds with autonomous boards.

What happened to Pakistan's climate change policy?

After devolution, it is not clear who should be responsible for climate change issues. It is an internal issue - and one that deals with water resources,

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302 agricultural production, food security and energy security, and livelihood options for the poor. But at the government level climate change is seen only in the context of international negotiations and a source of additional funds from the international community.

Currently the Planning Commission is in charge and they are looking at how our obligations to the UNFCCC can be met and regard it as an effective window to attract more funding.

Because of this, climate change still has not been mainstreamed into the policy arena. The draft policy prepared by the now devolved Ministry of Environment is still hanging in the air. After the passing of the 18th Amendment, we need to revisit this policy.

There is even talk of reinstating the Ministry of Environment! All this distracts us from mainstreaming climate change hence in all the government departments there is no reflection of how our path of development can become climate compatible. We have to look at a different way of allocating resources to withstand floods and other disasters. We have to initiate a process, which over the years can help us to better deal with climate related disasters

http://www.thefridaytimes.com/beta2/tft/article.php?issue=20110930&page=5

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Monsoon Rain Disaster in Sindh

A Statement from Sindh Peoples Commission on Disaster Prevention and Management

Islamabad: Sept 21, 2011: The recent spell of heavy rains has reinforced the losses caused by intense showers early in August in parts of Sindh. While initially the floods affected over one million population in seven districts of Sindh, poor arrangements by the state to establish a relief mechanism ensured that the suffering takes many more in its fold. Today, over 5 million people are facing extreme difficulties, including displacement and inadequate access to food, drinking water, and health and sanitation facilities.

Twenty three districts in Sindh and five districts in Balochistan have been severely affected. The UNFPA estimates that of the five million affected by the floods, one million are women of reproductive age. More than 100,000 of these women are pregnant with a large proportion in need of medical assistance. 1.1 million homes have been damaged or destroyed compared to 1.8 million houses destroyed across Pakistan during last year’s floods.

Seeing these floods from the point of view of numbers trivialises the very harsh realities associated

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304 with it. After last year’s extensive devastating floods, it is a matter of concern that the state machinery yet again failed millions of people by sleeping over both preparedness and management of the disaster that struck the province for second consecutive year. There are glaring deficits in infrastructure planning and management both riddled with irregularities and corruption. This when added to a deeply marginalising and polarising social and political order of the province leaves a trail of misery that is hard to recover from.

It wouldn’t be inappropriate to say that not only were the floods avoidable because of their very man-made nature, the destruction brought about by the water flows would have been much more controllable had the state paid any attention to its constitutional obligation of delivering on people’s right to live, right to equality and access to social services.

We, at the Sindh People’s Commission on Disaster Prevention and Management (SPCDPM), are firmly of the view that these floods were very much avoidable and there were great number of opportunities to ensure that the floods caused minimum damage to the population. A few points drawn from extensive discussions held at various meetings organised by the SPCDPM and from experts’ reports are presented here to support our arguments:

LBOD is largely responsible for the man-made catastrophe:

It is noteworthy that one element responsible for the floods in the month of August this year was multiple breaches in the Left Bank Outfall Drain which, in the past

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305 had been repeatedly criticised for its faulty design that exposes the local communities living alongside the area to great number of risks in case of heavy rainfalls. This is not the first time that the LBOD has severely affected and displaced the population of Badin. The 1999 cyclone, 2003 monsoon and 2006 rains caused overflows and breaches that displaced the population of Badin and adjacent areas and also caused loss of lives.

The maintenance and management of the LBOD and the sim nalas (that too overflowed this year), has remained a neglected affair due to extreme corruption and capacity deficits of the Public Works and the Irrigation Departments of the province. It is pertinent to note that sim nalas demand extra care and maintenance since they serve the purpose of draining out effluents that weakens the drainage structures. There have been no serious efforts to maintain the nalas over the years due to a lack of interest on the part of the government and the concerned departments that are full of political appointees compromising merit and capacity.

To add salt to the injury the Sindh government completely ignored Badin district and Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) in the Sindh Flood Contingency Plan 2011, rendering the August-September floods as a complete man-made catastrophe. Independent reports suggests that had the contingency plan identified vulnerable embankments and carried out repair work in the LBOD prior to the monsoon season, the losses could have been considerably minimised.

Underdevelopment of Sindh intensified the miseries:

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306 Sindh presents an extremely grim picture in terms of

access to basic services as well as the rights of the citizens in the rural areas. In the context of the development, there are wide disparities between rural and urban Sindh as the social indicators of urban Sindh equal or surpass the level of development in other developing countries with comparable per capita income. The level of human development in rural Sindh is worse than in some of the Sub-Saharan African countries. Two out of every five of the citizens of rural Sindh live below the poverty line.

Early this year, data released by the Sindh Department of Health indicated a Global Acute Malnutrition (GAM) rate of 21.2-23.1 per cent in children aged between 6-59 months in flood-affected areas of Sindh. This rate is well above the World Health Organization’s (WHO) 15 per cent emergency threshold level which triggers a humanitarian response. Furthermore, records from Northern Sindh reveal a Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) rate of 6.1. The Sindh government estimates about 90,000 children aged 6-59 months are malnourished.

In terms of school-going children, 73 percent girls and 63 percent boys in the province remain out of school, according to the Sindh Education Management Information Systems. In rural Sindh, 9 out of every 10 newborns are delivered without proper medical supervision. According to the Pakistan Social & Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) the immunization rate among children in rural Sindh children is extremely low -- 28% children of Rural Sindh between 12-23 months

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307 of age have been fully immunized - -compared to Punjab 54% and rural Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at 48%.

Sindh has the highest incidence of absolute landlessness (62% or two million households), highest share of tenancy (11% or 300,000 households), and the lowest share of land ownership (26% or 700,000 households) in the country, as pointed out in a report ‘Social Development in Pakistan; Annual Review 2004'. The land holding in the province is characterised by small holdings with 62% of small farmers owning less than 5 acres restricting modern mechanized agriculture.

Yet, more than 70% of the rural population derives their livelihood from agriculture, livestock, forestry, and fishing. The organized manufacturing and services sectors have minimal presence in the rural areas. Rural Sindh is highly dependent on public services with little role of the private sector. According to the latest Household Integrated Economic Survey (HIES), rural Sindh’s household described as “poor” have 9.11 members on average with only 2.76 persons per household employed. In the Punjab, an average household of 7.94 members has 2.31 persons per household benefitting from employment.

Groundwater is the principal source of drinking water for the majority of people in Pakistan. While about 80% of the Punjab Province has fresh groundwater, in Sindh, less than 30% of groundwater is fresh. Much of the province is underlain by highly brackish water with some instances of elevated fluoride levels.

In terms of housing too, rural Sindh has the highest percentage of population, 35 percent, living in one room accommodation. The PSLM Survey reports over 47% of

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308 the rural houses in Sindh made of mud bricks compared to 22 percent in Punjab and 28 percent in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa; though faring below 79 percent in Balochistan. The mud brick structure makes these houses prone to threats of damage in the event of floods or other disasters.

The four districts Badin, Mirpurkhas, Sanghar, and Thatta hit by the floods represent 27% of the rural population of Sindh province, with widespread poverty and incidence of bonded labour prevalent in the region. The cases of bonded labour flow from the existence of an unequal sharecropping tenancy system as well as the presence of brick establishments in the region that has over the years come to become a stronghold of bondage for workers involved in the sector.

Gender disparity

Both in terms of access to social services as well as cultural norms is acute in the Province of Sindh. For every 100 boys being immunized in urban Sindh, only 70 girls get immunized in rural areas. For every 100 boys enrolling in primary school in urban Sindh, only 43 girls do so in rural Sindh. Sindh also represents worst gender ratio in the country; for every 100 males in Sindh, there are only 89 females. Age old tribal traditions including the culture of honour and violence against women as a source of cultural pride continue to exist in the province.

Back to floods: No lessons learnt

During last year’s floods too, Sindh suffered immense misery despite the government having adequate time to prepare and prevent widespread losses. Seventeen districts of Sindh were affected by the

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309 floods last year making it the second most affected province following 24 districts devastated by the floods in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Around 182,1479 people stayed in 4,632 relief camps set up by the government during last year’s floods. Sindh suffered economic losses, especially in the area of agriculture and livestock.

According to a report by the Pakistan Space and Upper Atmosphere Research Commission and, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, during 2010 floods, Sindh suffered the highest damage to Kharif crops with 60 percent of the cotton crops, 64 percent of the sugarcane cultivation and 100 percent of rice crops estimated to be damaged by the floods. The Livestock Department of Sindh estimates that more than 40 percent of the 40million cattle heads perished due to floods in the province, while majority of the animals developed various diseases. Fish farms too suffered as most of the farms are located in Thatta, Badin and Dadu, three districts listed amongst the worst-hit districts of the province.

State representatives themselves expressed dissatisfaction with the repair work undertaken last year with Chairman of the Monitoring Committee on Rehabilitation Works on Canals and Dykes Dr Ahmad Ali Shah voicing apprehension over right bank canals’ capacity to sustain floodwater when it would be released into the system because of “unsatisfactory repairs carried out since last year floods.”

It is indeed a point of grave concern that despite the heavy losses of the 2010 floods, the government took a very long time to come into action after the district Badin was hit by floods in August 2011. In a press report on August 18, the Sindh CM categorically stated that there is

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310 no need for international assistance while the miseries of the affectees kept piling up. It was only on Sept 7, that the government announced that it is contemplating launching an international appeal for help.

This is even more astonishing since according to government’s own figures, till Aug 27, over 2 million people were already distressed by the floods and while 9,367 villages remained under water. 2 Sadly, local NGOs and humanitarian bodies too did little to offer assistance running extensive assessment exercise while seeking funds from local and international donors. The situation of food shortage, inadequate shelter and access to clean drinking water kept multiplying all this while.

According to the 2000 Agricultural Census, nearly one million households in Sindh earn their entire livelihood from rearing livestock. There are another million households that farm and raise livestock to supplement their incomes. The recent floods, according to official figures, have perished over 14,000 cattle heads. The government estimates 25percent of the province’s standing paddy crop to have been destroyed by the floods. The initial estimate of losses released by the Sindh Agriculture Department on Sept 5 showed that the flooding of the fields had destroyed a third of the total kharif crop, while another private estimate reports the losses to Sindh`s rural economy at Rs 250 billion.

The performance of the NDMA has been most dismal in this case as the relief measures undertaken by the authority fell short of the requirements on the ground. The NDMA, PDMA and the government are currently indulging in a “pass the buck” exercise, each blaming the other for not responding adequately to the

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311 crisis. Speaker National Assembly Fehmida Mirza even called for the closure of the NDMA for its ineffectiveness, while in a latest controversy, the NDMA has pointed to the government for sitting on Rs 5 billion of unused funds for flood affectees collected last year. All this, at a time when eight million people in Sindh and Balochistan are facing acute difficulties is a matter of utter shame.

We at SPCDPM demand immediate measures for the relief and rehabilitation of flood affectees. The state must establish a functional and credible coordination mechanism to inter-link the relief efforts. The compensation mechanism needs to be swift and deliverable without bureaucratic hitches. Most importantly, the state must undertake serious rehabilitation measures once the relief period is over. The rehabilitation phase must be based on the premises of establishing a new social contract with the affectees that should end the sense of marginalisation, disempowerment and deprivation that has long characterised the state-society relations in the under-developed parts of Sindh and Pakistan.

http://www.humanrights.asia/news/forwarded-news/AHRC-FST-047-2011

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EDITORIALS

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315

Disaster in Sindh

THE disaster being inflicted by the monsoon in Sindh is now becoming tragically reminiscent of last year’s devastating floods.

On Monday, the chairman of the National Disaster

Management Authority said that four to five million

people in the province had been affected — over a fifth

of the number affected in 2010 — and 132 had died.

Nearly 700,000 houses had been damaged, he added,

and standing crops on 1.7 million acres destroyed.

Recent days have been especially deadly, with the

majority of those who have died losing their lives within

the last two weeks.

What makes this all the more unfortunate is that

much of this year’s devastation has resulted from a

repeat of last year’s mistakes and a failure to take

preventive measures in light of that experience.

Continued encroachments along drains have prevented

their desilting, resulting in breaches. The construction

and rebuilding of dykes and embankments planned after

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316 last year’s experience was not completed in time.

Various stakeholders are arguing, as they did in 2010,

about who is responsible for breaches and which areas

water should be diverted to. The NDMA and its

provincial counterpart claim to be doing their job and the

army has played an important role, but the real need is

for disaster management expertise at the local level.

District-level disaster management authorities have

reportedly not been formed in most districts, and there

is no provision for such entities at the union council and

taluka level. As was the case last year, this leaves

response largely in the hands of local government

administrations, which are hardly resourced, equipped

or trained to deal with natural disasters or their

aftermath.

The cycle of human tragedy that has followed is also

heartbreakingly familiar. As rainwater has turned to

floods due to overflows and breaches in the irrigation

system, tens of thousands of houses have been washed

to the ground.

Standing water has led to mosquito-bred and

gastrointestinal diseases that have already taken lives.

Roads, communications, electricity and gas have been

cut off. Relief goods, including food and tents, are in

short supply. The prices of essential items have

skyrocketed.

Most damagingly, families have lost the cattle and

crops on which their livelihoods depend and which will

take months, if not years, to regain. Meanwhile, the

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317 danger is that the private funds that became such an

important part of relief and rehabilitation last year may

not be forthcoming until more damage has been done,

or at least highlighted. It is past time for Islamabad to

concentrate its energies and resources on mitigating the

effects of this new monsoon tragedy.

DAWN Editorial- September 7, 2011

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/07/disaster-in-sindh.html

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The deluge

THE president has been in London and the prime minister in Iran. Zulfikar Mirza, after igniting repeated rounds of political debate, has gone off to Dubai while his home district, Badin, remains one of the worst hit.

The speaker of the National Assembly has gone

along with him. While devastating rains and floods

continue to displace and kill Pakistani citizens, their

leaders remain away on visits that could easily have been

postponed. The president’s medical trip to London is not

quite the fiasco that the holiday in France during last

year’s floods was, but if it really was for a routine check-

up even that could easily have been delayed. Many other

politicians are busy indulging in the verbal back-and-

forth that the Karachi situation has been reduced to. The

bad timing is remarkable, even from the point of view of

their own political survival.

Meanwhile, relentless rains and poorly maintained

irrigation systems continue to result in devastating

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319 flooding. According to various government officials, 270

people have died in Sindh, 5.3 million people and 1.2

million homes have been affected and 1.7 million acres

of crops have been destroyed. The rains that have

already set an over 50-year record are expected to

continue for the rest of the week. What makes this

situation particularly troubling is the obvious negligence

that has led to it; one of the few benefits from last year’s

floods is that they provided the opportunity to learn

lessons about the province’s disaster-management and

relief needs.

Drains and embankments were left unfinished and

badly maintained, and the disaster-management

infrastructure remains insufficient, limited to warnings

issued by national- and provincial-level authorities with

no mechanisms at the local level.

The Red Cross has launched an initial appeal for a

mere $12m. The Chinese government provided $50,000

on Monday, although it has pledged more. These

numbers are not enough, and given the failures of the

National and Provincial Disaster Management

Authorities, the irrigation authorities and other arms of

the government, there is no choice but to reach out for

international assistance and for private help here at

home.

A domestic fiscal crunch, especially in light of

increased proceeds going to the provinces, means the

federal government has little to spare. A wide appeal for

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320 individual and NGO donations and expertise needs to be

launched, along with stepping up the appeal for

international humanitarian assistance launched on

Monday. Sadly, Pakistan is once again dependent on

foreign funds to keep its civilians safe from natural

disasters that have very recent precedent but that the

government seems to have done little to prepare for.

DAWN Editorial: September 14th, 2011

http://www.dawn.com/2011/09/14/the-deluge.html

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321

When water hits

WITH several parts of the country already affected by heavy downpours and flooding, a new spell of torrential rain could cause the crisis to aggravate if the Met Department forecast for the coming days proves correct. At this point it is difficult to say whether the consequent damage will be as great as we witnessed last year, when huge floods swept across the country. What is clear is that people are already suffering in parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh on account of flash floods and canal breaches. So far, with the exception of Badin in Sindh and adjoining areas, the problem has remained largely limited to the upper parts of the country, especially the north.

The latter receives more rain than the arid lands below. But rainwater flows south in Pakistan and there is no telling what destruction it may cause if active measures are not taken to prevent a repeat of last year’s floods. People in the south are bracing for the worst. The hardest hit could be regions downstream of Kotri and the delta areas. Just as important as rehabilitating devastated lives in the north is the need to take

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322 immediate measures to contain a potential disaster in the south.

The government must learn from its past mistakes and resolve not to repeat the wide-scale apathy it demonstrated last year. It must realise that the affected people must not be denied official support. It must also develop a strategy for tackling natural disasters, which seems to be non-existent at the moment, and have in place a solid plan. Occasional support is of little use and is no replacement for well-coordinated action on multiple levels.

Additionally, the government should focus on implementing environment-friendly policies so that a natural crisis is not compounded by man-made factors. Pakistan is prone to natural disasters and the past few years have seen it face several calamities ranging from earthquakes to cyclones to floods. In all cases the government’s performance has been far from sterling, and there are still many victims of past disasters who have not been rehabilitated.

DAWN Editorial- August 31, 2011

http://www.dawn.com/2011/08/31/when-water-hits.html

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323

Inundated

The people and the government of Pakistan had not yet come to terms with the devastation wrought by last year’s floods that a new calamity has hit. The incessant monsoon rains are continuing across the country, which have particularly affected 21 districts of Sindh. Almost 200 people have lost their lives while more than four million people have been displaced in this southern province of the country. The torrential rains have also washed away standing crops on more than 1.7 million acres of land. More than a million hapless people are lying under the open sky on highways, banks of canals and the sand dunes of Tharpakar adjoining Naukot and Kaloi areas. The likelihood of the spread of infectious diseases in the flood-hit areas is extremely high, especially given the overlap of the flood season and the dengue outbreak.

Finally Prime Minister Gilani has deemed the issue serious enough to appeal to the international institutions, world community and the expatriates of Pakistan to help the country in relief and rehabilitation efforts for the flood affectees. He has also urged the nation and political and other democratic forces to get

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324 together in this hour of need. No doubt, the damages caused by the natural calamity are too huge to be addressed by the government alone. Addressing the nation on TV and Radio, the prime minister has also confessed to the government’s inefficiency that the initial estimates about the scale of devastation caused by the excessive rainfall were wrong.

The destruction and losses are much higher and the government cannot manage it on its own. It is quite unfortunate that despite facing massive countrywide flooding only a year ago, the government misunderstood and miscalculated the situation this year. Repeated warnings and alerts by independent metrological experts and the MET department, not to mention newspaper editorials and articles, did not deter the government officials from adhering to their age-old policy of sticking their heads in the sand. Feigning ignorance of a problem does little to solve it. The response of the international community to Pakistan government’s aid appeals during the floods in 2010 was very slow and poor as compared to the earthquake 2005.

They cited rampant corruption as the sole reason for their lack of interest in helping Pakistan. Regrettably, fake relief camps a la floods 2010 have cropped up this year too. Mr Gilani has recently visited one in the suburbs of Umerkot. What further can be said about the state of relief and rehabilitation efforts is anyone’s guess. The torrential rains have caused multiple breaches in the Left Bank Outfall Drain (LOBD), which is mixing toxic water with fresh water sources. This situation is

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325 adding to the tragedy. There is a fault in the design of the LOBD, which needs immediate correction.

Our calamity-hit brethren are going through the worst period of their life. They lost their entire livelihood in last year’s floods and whatever they had managed to recover so far has once again been washed away. The losses of livestock, seed stock and standing crops would leave an acute impact on our already battered economy.

There is a need of ensuring complete transparency in utilising the aid received from local and international communities. However, the greater task for the government is to regain its credibility so that domestic and international communities start pouring in aid. The visit of Nawaz Sharif, chief of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), to the flood-hit areas of interior Sindh is praiseworthy. The distressed flood affectees are looking for our help. It is an obligation of all Pakistanis to rise above their political, ethnic, linguistic and religious differences to tackle the challenges created by the floods.

Daily Times: Monday, September 12, 2011

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011/09/12/story_12-9-2011_pg3_1

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326

Economic consequences of floods

That Pakistan and its farming community were ill-

prepared for the recent floods is all too obvious and need not be adverted too. The evidence was all too obvious that there was something wrong in the weather systems. The laninio and the alnineo aspect apart, there was also the tilting of the axis of the earth. That meant that the equinoxes and the solstices had changed. The tilting meant that the weather system was not going to be predictable.

It never was. But one could be relatively sure of the likely moisture content in the Barani (rain-fed) areas of Pakistan. This year's floods meant that the province of Sindh did receive more rainwater than was ever envisaged and if the right side of the Indus was affected by floods last year it was the eastern side of the river that was affected. The preventive measures against such massive water run-off from the rains were never available.

The engineering designs of the road system were partially to blame. No culverts were provided and one

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327 cannot blame the engineers for their lack of foresight. Sindh had never had such massive rains except Karachi in 1968, when the town came under rainwater. The expellers refused to work as there was a full moon and the high tide forces the water into the suburbs rather than takes the water out from the built in storm channels. The engineering design of these storm channels was ill-conceived. These water channels are now being used in Karachi for drainage of polluted water.

There is so much lament in our society that it leaves no space for positive action. Everyone is crying over the fact that the tragedy was the worst ever. That is also true, but something has to be done about it. Examine the road structure of Sindh. The roads are higher than the agriculture lands. Why? Sindh never had rains, therefore there was no need for roads to have drainage. In former East Pakistan I had served in the dry area where rainfall was 73 inches and the precipitation occurred only in two months. There every road had at least 35 culverts for the drainage to be adequately covered. The roads were higher than the surrounding areas by much more than what it is in Sindh.

A massive effort is required to carry out infrastructural corrections. If we again bury our heads in the sand, then again, there will be a repeat of the same in the future years. This rain pattern is going to stay with us bringing misery as a result of the man-made engineering designs, rather than destruction by nature.

Please examine our own shortcomings and do not try and shift the blame onto nature and the will of God.

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328 The will of God is a blessing and not a curse. The lessons to learn are difficult as the people that are involved in the process lack the imagination and the will to improve the lot of the poor in the country and in the province. The water arrangement between Sindh and the other provinces was based on the premise that Sindh had no rains or very little, therefore its demand for agriculture water was more. Now Sindh will have to change its act or be a perpetual victim of the floodwaters. The issues have been confused by all and sundry in the analysis of the debacle.

Economic loss of crops, especially for those that were living marginally already is one aspect the other is the health issue. The loss due to disease can also be a permanent loss and in any case, the minimal resources can be further reduced by debilitation caused by ill health. The quantification of loss is in such is not authentic.

The urban people really do not understand the loss and the misery and the loss of hope that comes with such natural disasters. The estimates of loss may be what they are. The efforts to rebuild the rural economy must take on a different set of interventions. It could be so but for the fact the provincial and federal government will have to take a different route.

There are issues that are very serious and Sindh and its policy-makers have to understand that the wetlands which are the kidneys of the province absorb not only rainfall but also filter pollutants and dampen the effects of a storm surge they have been damaged; whether these are irrevocably damaged or otherwise that is a

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329 matter that needs to be determined. Yet there is no agency that can do this. The mighty Indus has lost its delta character, as it becomes a mere trickle during the dry season. In any case, only one section at Keti Bunder goes to the sea.

The cropping pattern for the future of agriculture has to be differently worked. One consequence that could create a more difficult position for the government is the wiping off of all agrarian boundaries. The Dhand (wetland) area, as it is known, has been surveyed by a team of women belonging to an NGO, but I suggest that the NARC and the agriculturists from the national institutes must set up a camp there.

I can tell you that even then these jokers will not be able to do anything. Their imbecility is confounding. As Auden, the poet, very correctly stated that 'thousands have lived without love, but not one without water'. If Sindh was scarce in water and now from excess of rain run-off water then the policy-makers must determine for themselves as to the priority to be attached to undoing what has happened.

The use of water is excessive in agriculture and that is an issue that is embedded in the minds of the large farmers of the country. The opinion that more is better is not necessarily correct. In recent experiments that were carried out in Basmati rice standing water, the knowledge of centuries was done away with. The standing water was not a necessity now as it was then and was for the purpose of weed killing. These rice weeds could now be eliminated differently. When taking on the technology of centuries, with which the farmers

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330 are comfortable, one has to go easily and with caution. The game is of personal credibility with the farmers.

The experiment in the first year was with 5,000 acres and on its success; the farmers went on to 60,000 acres. The yield increase was a bonus and was tripled. The saving of water was 38%. The next experiment was to be with drip irrigation in rice. That was not to be as one left research. So water could be used better. The other big user of water is sugarcane and in this, the first experiment that was being done was the effective and efficient use of water.

Given the technology that is now available, it is possible to determine the moisture in the soil. For six months or thereabouts, no irrigation water was given to the sugarcane crop. It still had moisture with which temperatures of the time could sustain the crop for another two months. If rains came then the conjunctive use of water would save about 60% of the irrigated water.

These water-saving devices were actually soil enrichment policies. Sindh suffers from a high water table and the water can get to as much as one foot from the surface and that is why the flood waters can only be drained of and do not seep in the soil as it is already saturated. Evaporation is also not possible because of the high humidity. Water use in agriculture is expensive and we have used a scarce resource in a wasteful manner. The crop efficiency use of water is not even in double digits and research has been done badly by the farmer and the country.

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331 Does one have to quantify the damage due to crops

or take substantive actions to nullify the impact so that in the future at least, the damage can be contained by proactive polices put in place. This duty of care has been lost to the researcher and to the policy-maker in general. The loss is not at the macro-level but at the micro-level, where the poor have lost everything because of the myopic polices of the past. A correction is called for and the lead has to be taken by the big farmers the small will follow.

Ultimately it is all about human endeavour and how it is played. The selfish game must end. One shudders to think as the consequences can be even more terrible. These are warning signals we have received that all is not well in the natural resource field. Nature has been vilified and the harmony that was with agriculture has been lost.

Business Recorder, Karachi Saturday, 01 October 2011

http://finance.kalpoint.com/economic-updates/exclusive-articles/economic-consequences-of-floods.html