Pakistan's climate minister raises funding alarm for 20 million flood victims

Sherry urges donor agencies to assist ‘in sharing unprecedented burden with Pakistan’

Pakistan's climate minister has raised the alarm on the country's post-flood situation, saying 20 million people were still dependent on humanitarian aid while the United Nations funding appeal has received only a third of its $816 million target.

“Disaster amnesia is not uncommon in a world driven by competing goals, and the human tragedy wrought by Pakistan’s catastrophic flooding has been forgotten by many,” Federal Minister for Climate Change Sherry Rehman said in a statement on Monday.

“But the climate-induced crisis in Pakistan has long-term implications for recovery and resilience in a context defined by systemic deficits in climate financing with 20 million people still currently dependent on humanitarian aid, while flash appeals just for the humanitarian gap by the United Nations have received only 30% of the $816 million,” she added.

The minister said the floods caused damage worth $30 billion and that the rehabilitation and disaster-reconstruction needs had been estimated at $16.3 billion.

“The UN has warned that 8.4 to 9.1 million people will be pushed below the poverty line. Winter will be harsh on the forgotten ark of climate misery here. The numbers are too huge; 33 million impacted literally meant we were reinventing the lives of populations covering the size of three medium sized European countries at the same time," she said.

After months of ongoing humanitarian operations, Rehman said that 14.6 million flood-affected people still needed emergency food assistance from December 2022 to March 2023. "We should not forget that almost 3.9 million people in Sindh and 1.6 million in Balochistan are facing severe food insecurity, with 5.5 million people no longer having access to safe and clean drinking water.”

The UN’s ongoing assistance is facing a looming risk of ending prematurely as they are running out of funds to continue the needed support, she added.

Also read: UN says funds for flood-hit Pakistan to run out in weeks

Sherry said the World Food Programme (WFP) has said that they will run out of funds by mid-January for Pakistan, putting an additional 1.1 million people at an extreme risk of food insecurity.

The UN has received only $262 million or just 30% from international donors out of the US$816 million under the Floods Response Plan. “While the level of human suffering from the floods cannot be monetised, repercussions of climate extremes have torn apart the social infrastructure in the flood affected zones and people need immediate and urgent relief. We have to keep in mind that in Sindh, over 240,000 people remain displaced with at least 10 districts continuing to report standing water, while the same situation persists in two districts of Balochistan.”

The climate minister said flood victims have started returning to their homes, but they were facing compounding issues of food insecurity and health-related challenges.

The minister warned that children are at the frontline of the flood aftermath with 9.6 million children in urgent need of humanitarian assistance out of the total 20 million affected.

“With the onset of winter and temperatures dropping to single digits, the survival of children in camps is at stake. We urge all local philanthropists and international agencies to assist provincial governments in sharing this unprecedented burden with Pakistan. Along with our development partners, we estimate that 1.6 million children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition, and 7 million are in desperate need of nutrition services.,“ she added.

The minister said over half a million children are expected to go unvaccinated in areas devastated by floods, which will be disastrous for Pakistan’s efforts to eradicate Polio. “The future of these children is also in peril as more than 2 million have been forced to stay of school due to damages caused to more than 34,000 schools, with education for girls among the most impacted. This needs every donor’s help, or we will see an entire generation lost to this great flood,” she remarked.

Providing an update on the funds received, the minister said Pakistan has received around US$4 billion in financial foreign assistance to support flood relief activities in the country, out of which $3.64 billion is in the form of loans and $435.03 million in the form of grants.