Helping the most vulnerable

How incoming aid is spent, deserves much closer attention to avoid mistakes made in the past.

The government and various aid agencies had yet to adequately rehabilitate the 20 million people affected by last year’s devastating floods when yet more floods happened this year. And the impact has been catastrophic, with millions affected. To make matters worse, much of the damage has happened in Sindh, which is still struggling from what happened last year. This year’s floods have caused massive damage to crops, livestock, and to the already scant rural infrastructure. According to one recent estimate, as many as eight million people have been affected so far.

Our hapless government is now struggling to muster its available resources after it seems that the international community came out reluctant to help us following this year’s floods, partly because of credibility issues. In an attempt to route more aid through its offices, UN officials have claimed that Pakistan has learnt a lot from the past year’s floods, which led to the formulation of better preparedness plans, resulting in pre-positioning of relief stocks and improved search and rescue capacities. Yet, both the government’s ability and resolve to provide adequate relief is being severely criticised domestically.

Ultimately, the amount of funds allocated for flood relief is not the best criteria for gauging the adequacy of disaster response. It is equally important that the available aid actually reaches those most in need. However, prior experience unfortunately indicates that this is not necessarily what happens. The diversion of aid to areas patronised by the affluent, the grabbing of relief items by the powerful, or the marginalisation of minorities by relief agencies, especially those with religious leanings, also emerged as major problems during previous disaster response efforts in Pakistan.

How incoming aid is spent, also deserves much closer attention to avoid mistakes made in the past. Consider for instance, how donors and our government singularly focused on rebuilding homes in the earthquake-hit northern areas, without ensuring that the landless poor first be provided land on which their homes were to be rebuilt. The usurping of agricultural inputs, cash grants and other rehabilitation facilities by the more affluent also became evident in the aftermath of the floods last year.

Specific emphasis must now be placed on helping vulnerable communities in particular, or else the incoming aid will once again be captured by the relatively affluent, especially in districts like Umerkot, Mirpur and Sanghar, where landless agricultural labourers are subjected to complete subservience by local landlords. There is also a significant presence of low-caste Hindu communities in many of the flooded areas, who also lack the capacity to assert their demand to incoming aid. If these poor people are not specifically targeted by rehabilitation schemes, they will probably become even more indebted to landlords or other non-farm employers such as brick kiln owners.

On the other hand, one must also be wary of post-disaster complications for the flood-affected, such as the forcing of the displaced women into bogus marriages, coerced adoptions of orphans, begging or even prostitution. Moreover, a report issued by an international NGO had warned that the proportion of children forced to work had risen by a third in areas worst hit by the floods last year. This year again, if the poorest families are unable to receive adequate rehabilitation support, they will be compelled to send out their children to scour for desperately needed income to ensure survival. But no significant steps have been taken to prevent the reemergence of such disturbing practices.

Instead of wasting their energies deflecting the growing criticism, our policymakers would do well by transcending their usual preoccupations — of supporting local powerbrokers to further selfish political compulsions, or trying to revive agricultural productivity by channeling available support to major landlords alone — and place greater emphasis on maximising assistance to those in most need.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 24^th,  2011.