WORLD BRIDGE BLOG

Five years after Hurricane Katrina tore through the Gulf Coast, destroying homes and leaving people desperate for food and shelter, we are witnessing similar scenes of destruction coming out of Pakistan. Floods caused by torrential monsoon rains have affected an estimated 17 million Pakistanis while humanitarian agencies, local relief organizations, and the Pakistani government and military, struggle to provide desperately needed assistance and to reach over one million stranded victims. 

Five million displaced Pakistanis are in need of food, shelter, and medical care. With nothing but the clothes on their back and searching for a safe place to gather their family, many do not even have a piece of plastic or a tent roof to provide shade and protection. Millions are suffering from heat and the lack of drinkable water. They have joined the ranks of the globe’s over 50 million internally displaced people, dependent on national and international assistance.  

Pakistan, a developing country often affected by droughts, now finds itself awash in flood waters that have destroyed 1.2 million homes and swept away thousands of bridges, roads and buildings. Worse, the floods threaten the country’s food production and distribution systems as well as its economy and its weak governance structures.  No single government could handle such a widespread disaster on their own – as the hundreds of thousands of U.S. Katrina victims know first-hand. 

To help reach Pakistan’s newly displaced, the UN has requested over $459 million in emergency assistance, 55% of which it has received. The U.S. to date has pledged some $150 million, and USAID which generally leads the U.S. response to internal displacement, is reviewing its large assistance program to better respond to the new emergency protection and assistance needs of Pakistan.  

Pakistan has experienced large-scale displacement before, and is familiar with the challenges of providing protection and co-coordinating returns, as it did for several million people displaced by military campaigns against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. However, this current crisis is already ten times larger.  As donors provide more helicopters and relief vehicles to reach those stranded, and as the flood waters recede, we hope that Pakistanis will overcome political differences, to work with their government and the international community and to uphold humanitarian aid principles while respecting the rights and dignity of their citizens.

Pakistan’s government has traditionally been weak, riddled with corruption and inefficiencies and too heavily reliant on its large military to conduct security as well as relief and rehabilitation efforts. The Pakistani military has led the response to the floods, providing humanitarian aid, food and medical assistance and helping to reunite the thousands of separated families.

The military seems to have done a good job considering the overwhelming scale of the disaster. However, Pakistan is a country that has long suffering from over-reliance on the military – and it is critical that local civilian organizations are included in the immediate relief effort and long term recovery. Not building up the capacities of civilian agencies will result in top-down decision making and the exclusion of critical civilian voices.

As the U.S. observes the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the nation’s costliest disaster, critics note that much of the destroyed housing, jobs and infrastructure have not yet been replaced. Likewise, it will take many years to rebuild the destroyed infrastructure in Pakistan and to recover from the human and economic impact of the disaster. Much planning will need to go into best using the assistance provided by the UN and international donors and co-coordinating the safe return and sustainable reintegration of the internally displaced. This will only happen with the involvement of civil society. With increased civilian capacities and a unified population, Pakistan will be better able to face the herculean and multiyear challenge it has ahead.