The floods in Pakistan and the global and EU humanitarian responses
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The current climate and flooding crisis in Pakistan
The extreme heat wave that hit Pakistan and India in March and April 2022 was followed in June by
the heaviest monsoon rains in over a century. According to the OCHA (United Nations Office for the
Coordination of Humanitarian Aid) situation report No 7 of 24 September 2022, over 1 600 people
including 79 children, have been killed by the rains, floods and landslides, while over 12 850 people
have been injured since mid-June, including 4 000 children. In total, it is estimated that more than
33 million people out of a population of 236 million have been affected. Over
805 000 houses have
been completely destroyed, over 1.2 million houses have been damaged, and 1.1 million livestock
have perished. Furthermore,
2 million acres of crops have been adversely impacted. The
communications infrastructure has been hard hit, with 12 700 km of roads damaged or destroyed.
According to the OCHA situation report, 7.9 million people have been displaced, including some
598 000 people now living in relief camps. The report also mentions rising floodwaters in parts of
Sindh and Balochistan, and stagnant or receding waters elsewhere.
On 17 September 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the alarm about a second
disaster in the wake of the floods: outbreaks of waterborne and other diseases, such as
gastrointestinal infections, dengue fever, diarrhoea, typhoid and malaria, due to the dirty, stagnant
and mosquitos-infected waters. Many
analysts, and also the United Nations (UN) Resident
Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator in Pakistan, have attributed the floods to climate
change. They observe that the devastating rains have occurred in a country that has done little to
cause global warming, but keeps being hit by it. Others have
blamed the absence of governmental
measures to prevent construction in flood-prone areas and river beds after the 2010 floods, which
resulted in the deaths of almost 2 000 people. Pakistan's Climate Change Minister
Sherry Rehman
blames the inefficiency of the North-South climate deal: 'There is so much loss and damage, with so
little reparations to countries that contributed so little to the world's carbon footprint, that obviously
the bargain made between the global north and global south is not working'. Pakistan is on the
Germanwatch-compiled list of the ten countries worst affected by climate change from 2000 to
2019, while itself being responsible for less than 1 % of global carbon emissions. Bilawal Bhutto
Zardari, Pakistan's Foreign Minister, declared on 1 September that the cost of the damage would
exceed current estimates of US$10 billion, and that the crisis was still ongoing – in the rescue and
relief phase.
The domestic, global and EU humanitarian responses
Pakistan's response
The government of Pakistan mobilised the
local response by establishing the
Prime
Minister's Flood Relief Fund to collect
donations in Pakistan and abroad. Despite
finding itself in the throes of a serious
economic crisis (see text box), Pakistan has
also, reportedly, released
US$113 million to
some 1 million flood-affected households,
through the Benazir Income Support
Programme (
BISP) in Balochistan, Sindh,
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab, according
to the National Disaster Management
Authority (
NDMA).
Pakistan's economic crisis
Pakistan'
s loose fiscal policy, coupled with the
international food and fuel price shocks caused by the
Russian invasion of Ukraine, has
resulted
unsustainable current account deficit, a significant
decrease in the country's foreign reserves (US$9 billion,
about six weeks' worth of imports) and a 30 %
depreciation of the currency. Domestically, annual
inflation reached 24.9 % in August 2022. This
contributed to the ousting of the prime minister,
Imran Khan, and the recent resignation of the finance
minister, Miftah Ismail.
Sources: International Monetary Fund, Britannica, and