It is laughable that like our foreign and defence policies, even our weather forecasting policy is India-centric.
ISLAMABAD: Raza Rumi, in his recent article, said: “I was intrigued to note an advert a month ago wherein a multilateral agency was hiring a programme manager for ‘early recovery’ after floods!”
Technically, even ‘early recovery’ typically takes between six and 18 months. ‘Early’ is a misnomer. What it actually entails is transitional measures to help the affected communities restore — to an extent — their livelihoods until permanent reconstruction takes place. What I find most jarring is that some important quarters among the decision-making bodies in the government are pressing for an official end to early recovery activities because their argument is that we are a “proud nation and do not wish to appear like beggars before the rest of the world”. This doesn’t take away the reality that help is needed but the effect it has had is that donor funding has dried down to a trickle.
One cannot help but wonder where our so-called national prides goes when we ‘beg’ other countries for military aid or for direct budgetary support. It is quite evident that the National Disaster Management Authority’s (NDMA) capacity remains as low as it was prior to last year’s mega flood. In fact, the official mandate of the NDMA has been further eroded since early this year by awarding a permanent status to the Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority, ostensibly a political move to accommodate a coalition partner of the federal government.
It is ironic that countries like Indonesia and Japan have not hit upon the brilliant idea of erecting a permanent earthquake reconstruction authority where such things are far more frequent. The reconstruction of dykes has not received the priority that it deserved, and even more alarming is the fact that the early warning system for floods has not been updated or upgraded in light of last year’s disaster.
It was said that the biggest factor for the damage caused was that, atypically, the western rivers flowing in from within, or areas adjacent to, Afghanistan had brought in unprecedented amounts of water. We do not have an adequate network of rain gauges and flood-monitoring flumes along the western rivers, in comparison to the network along the eastern rivers flowing in from India. It is laughable that, in addition to our foreign and defence policies, even our weather forecasting policy is India-centric.
Usman Qazi
Published in The Express Tribune, July 4th, 2011.
