Chair: Dr. Sarah Tirmazi, Development Specialist, Islamabad, Pakistan
Discussant: Mr. Sarfaraz Lashari, Executive Director, South Asia Policy Center (SAFAD), Cranfield University, UK
Panel Organizers: Dr. Abid Qaiyum Suleri, Executive Director (Interim), SDPI, and Ms Sobia N. Ahmad, Former Research Associate, SDPI, Islamabad, Pakistan
Mr. Sanaullah Rustamani, Lecturer from the Sindh Education Department Hyderabad, Pakistan, presented a paper titled “Disaster Management Policies for Kirthar Range Rivers of Sindh and Balochistan” in which he pointed out that floods are not a new phenomenon in Sindh and Balochistan. The history of floods started in the 1870s. Using secondary data source, newspapers and on-site field interviews, Mr. Rustamani analyzed the flood situation in Sindh and Balochistan from 1976 onwards to see what the government and NGOs have done so far to mitigate the miseries of the flood affected people. The socio-economic and environmental impacts of the floods over the affected areas, including the Manchar Lake (which is believed to be one of the largest sweet water lakes of Asia) were also evaluated. Most importantly, he focused on what needs to be done to achieve sustainable development by taking effective measures to control the natural disaster.
During the recent floods of 2007, 5,000 villages of Balochistan were affected and many people drowned in the floodwater. Some 368 people were feared dead, 41,718 houses were destroyed and 10 districts of Balochistan were badly affected. In this connection, the Government announced a relief package for flood victims, amounting to Rs. 20 million for the 0.9 million food affected people of Balochistan, which means approximately Rs.200 for each flood affected person. This amount was quite insufficient even to purchase food. With regard to the losses during the flood in Balochistan, the provincial home minister of Balochistan stated, “If the whole budget of Balochistan is utilized, it would not be sufficient to meet the losses”.
The worst floods of 1995 in Sindh occurred due to breaches at the Flood Protective (FP) bund (block/wall). The aim of this bund was to divert the flow of water from villages and towns of Sindh to the Manchar Lake. These floods destroyed 29,878 houses, 1,449 villagers were affected and 215 people died. In connection to the rehabilitation process, it was pointed out that the government should reconstruct schools, hospitals and houses, and the flood affected peasants should be given agriculture loans for maintaining their fields. There should be repair work of broken roads, latrines, and bridges. Also live stock vaccination should be done. In order to control the after effects of flood, there should be stone pitching of FP bund. Moreover, there should be a proper warning system to people to move to safer places at the time of flood. There should be one other canal to Hamal Lake and from Hamal to Manchar Lake, and these surplus canals should be opened in flood times only. Also there should be regular monitoring and repair of bunds before the monsoon season.
Mr. Adam Poulter, Area Office Manager (North), ActionAid, Pakistan; and Mr. Abdul Khaliq, Policy Officer (North), ActionAid, Pakistan, presented a paper titled “Promoting a People’s Agenda: Reflections on Working with a Rights-based Approach after the Kashmir Earthquake”. In October 2005 earthquake, 500,000 household lost their houses, more than 1 million people lost their jobs, 74,000 people died and over 7,000 schools, and water supply schemes, and all major hospitals and government buildings were destroyed.
This paper examined the impacts of 2005 earthquake and response of ActionAid in relief, rehabilitation and reconstruction phase. Action Aid worked in affected areas through immediate response, long-term response and through a Rights Base approach. In the relief phase, ActionAid staff was sent to affected areas. For the first two months, there was no office of ActionAid over there and priority was given to remote areas and after making an initial assessment package. The ActionAid gave tents, food, blankets, warm clothes, etc.
In the Rehabilitation & Reconstruction phase, ActionAid worked in four districts, where it provided shelter to 7,000 families, set up water supply lines and wells, gave tailoring trainings and in livelihood support, ActionAid provided cash grants, livestock, grocery shops, crush, flour and sawing machines. Moreover, Action Aid sought to challenge power imbalances and promoted the role of women in the conservative society and tried to change thinking of communities challenging the stereotype that women have no role in development work. The organization also involved women in decision-making about location of assets e.g. wells. They also celebrated the international women day.
One major loss due to earthquake was the destruction of houses. Relating to the issue of designs of houses, ActionAid raised this issue before ERRA. In connection to policy advocacy, on the first anniversary of earthquake, Action Aid formed citizen commissions and held a protest in Bagh, wrote lobbying letters to ERRA about housing policy to approve traditional “daji dar” design. The organization also pressed the government for the release of remaining installments to earthquake-affected people. On the second anniversary of earthquake, ActionAid held rallies, meetings with the parents of the students for school construction, and raised awareness through TV.
At present there seems a lack of clarity on mandates and roles of government bodies in rehabilitation because only 5-10% of houses have been rebuilt so far, less than 500 schools have been constructed while no hospitals have been made. It is the need of time to develop a systematic and sustained community preparedness as part of development based work.
Dr. Shreekant Gupta, Visiting Senior Fellow from the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore, Singapore, presented a paper titled “Mitigating Natural Disasters: State and Civil Society Collaboration in Promoting Awareness and Communication”. The use of information for promoting awareness and communication in disaster mitigation (all actions taken before, during and after occurrence of event that minimizes its impacts) has not been adequately studied or understood, especially in developing countries, stated the speaker. There are several components of mitigation, e.g. close coordination with land use planning, determining location and nature of potential hazards, characterizing vulnerable population and structures, establishing standards for acceptable levels of risk and adopting mitigation strategies based on cost benefit analysis. Developing countries focus less on mitigation because it requires long-term political and economic commitment, threats are uncertain and problems pass on to next generation. This paper particularly reviewed China’s campaign to predict earthquakes and its implications for developing countries especially those in South Asia. In July 1976, an earthquake killed about a quarter million in Tanghsan city of northeastern China. But in the nearby Qinglong county, thanks to early warning an earthquake few days later only killed one person out of a total population of about 0.5 million. Role of civil society serves as a catalyst in the process of mitigation, because no disaster mitigation initiative can succeed without total participation of communities, he pointed out.
Reported by Farhat Mehmood
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