UN urges Pakistan to spend on resilience to speed up recovery from natural disasters
November 20, 2012: A United Nations relief official on Mondayu called on Pakistan
and its partners to increase investment in resilience measures that will allow the
country to recover from natural disasters, such as floods and earthquakes, which have
affected millions of people over the past years. “Pakistan has faced repeated
humanitarian crises in the last decade – from the earthquake of 2005 to the unprecedented
flooding in 2010. Inevitably, this has brought Pakistan face to face with the challenges
of climate change,” said the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs
and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator, Catherine Bragg, during a visit to the country.
“In the face of these repeated challenges, we must all turn to the longer-term
and sustainable solutions – to strengthening resilience,” she added. Flooding
this year in southern Pakistan has affected almost five million people, according
to Pakistani Government estimates, and many are still recovering from Pakistan’s floods
of 2010 and 2011. During her visit, Ms. Bragg assessed and drew attention to the
needs of communities affected by the floods in the south and displaced families in
the northwest. She visited the Jalozai camp, near the northern city of Peshawar,
where 11 per cent of the 744,000 people who have been displaced since 2008 reside.
While noting that relief services in the camp are well organized and efficient due
to cooperation on the ground among many partners, the UN humanitarian official stressed
that there is still a funding shortage to meet their needs. “$79 million is urgently
required to meet immediate needs. Winter is coming, making the need even more urgent.
Those needs can only be met if all levels of the Government – from local to federal
authorities – are engaged,” Ms. Bragg said. “If you know Pakistan, you know this is
the third year that millions of people have been affected by flooding, uprooting families
and destroying their livelihoods.” According to the UN Office for the Coordination
of Humanitarian Affairs (), funding constraints threaten the provision of critical
services to flood-affected people in the provinces of Balochistan, Punjab and Sindh,
as well as displaced and returnee families in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas, located in the country’s north-west. Humanitarian partners
urgently require $196 million to continue providing essential relief services over
the coming months, OCHA added. These services include preventative and emergency healthcare,
water and sanitation, shelter, education, protection, household relief items, food
security and nutrition services “All partners – the Government of Pakistan, the
UN and its partners, international development banks, civil society and philanthropists
alike – must come together to tackle this enormous challenge,” Ms. Bragg added.