Abstracts
Panel Title: Floods and Disaster Preparedness in Pakistan: Regional Solution to National Problems
Pakistan at a Critical Juncture: How an Integrated Community-led Reconstruction Model can help promote democratic culture and institutions in Pakistan
Technology preparedness for disseminating flood relief and rehabilitation information to local stakeholders online: Lessons learnt while developing Punjab flood relief website in Urdu
Floods in Sindh: Analysis of missing links in the pre- and post-flood flood scenario
Sustainable flood management strategy for Pakistan
Pakistan at a Critical Juncture: How an Integrated Community-led Reconstruction Model can help promote democratic culture and institutions in Pakistan
Edward Gonzalez*
Pakistan stands at a critical juncture in its history, and democratic reformers within the government and in civil society have a unique opportunity to promote democratic transparency, accountability, and representation by shaping the flood reconstruction efforts in such a way to rebuild not only the physical infrastructure affected by the floods (i.e., roads, schools, bridges, etc.), but also the social infrastructure to make it more democratic and transparent. This paper presents an Integrated Community-led Rehabilitation Model (ICRM), a participatory and inclusive approach to the reconstruction response to the 2010 monsoon flooding throughout Pakistan. As detailed in the paper, the magnitude and impact of the monsoon flooding is of historic proportions, and as such it has tested the civilian authorities to its limits. From the point of view of the public, there have been extreme levels of skepticism from different sectors towards the government’s capacity to respond to the floods. This paper argues that a framework, such as ICRM, that aims to establish a transparent, inclusive and responsive community-led planning structure that is characterised by continuous interaction between community members and representatives from the government, private sector, and civil society organisations as they plan long-term relief and rehabilitation projects, would be an effective way of structuring local level reconstruction. Further, it will also help in promoting democratic culture and social cohesion by creating mechanisms through which representatives from the community, private sector, civil society, and government institutions can interact. This community-led approach aims to ensure the effectiveness of the reconstruction efforts by creating open lines of communication and the potential for open, constructive, and democratic community dialogue and empowerment.
From a theoretical perspective, the proposed ICRM calls for a richer sense of democracy; thus it goes beyond aggregative democracy and aims to promote deliberative democracy. Accordingly, the paper presents a literature review of deliberative and aggregative democracy, and goes on to place community-led planning efforts within this literature. In all, the paper argues that by adopting an integrated community-led reconstruction model, Pakistan can promote democratic participation, increase transparency and accountability mechanisms, thus directly addressing the pervasive perception of government corruption.
 *Dr. Edward Gonzalez is a Political Scientist working with the USAID in Pakistan. He is the Democracy, Governance, and Reconstruction Officer based in USAID/Lahore.
Technology preparedness for disseminating flood relief and rehabilitation information to local stakeholders online: Lessons learnt while developing Punjab flood relief website in Urdu
Huda Sarfraz*, Sarmad Hussain**, Mahwish Bano*** and Aniqa Dilawari****
The Punjab Flood Relief and Rehabilitation portal (http://floodrelief.punjab.gov.pk) has been set up in the wake of the recent floods by the Punjab Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA). The portal has been developed by the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) in the English language. A variety of information, including financial information, damage assessment estimates, loss statistics and details of relief activities are being updated on a daily basis and being publicised through this portal. In order to make this information accessible on a wider scale, in particular, to the large portion of the population that is not literate in English, the portal is also being localised and made available in Urdu (http://floodrelief.punjab.gov.pk/urdu) by the Center for Language Engineering, Al-Khawarizmi Institute of Computer Science, University of Engineering and Technology. This is a vital measure to ensure that this critical information is made available in a language medium that is accessible for most of the population. This paper presents the technology process through which the portal is being localised and updated. It will discuss the issues and challenges encountered during the localisation, from the aspects of human resource development, language, technology and processes, and their solutions. It will investigate how this localisation framework can be improved for the future in order to yield the maximum benefit. Finally, some recommendations will be given on the basis of the issues discussed on how to proceed in the future in the context of Pakistan.
 * Ms. Huda Sarfraz holds a masters degree in computer science. She has been involved in multiple localisation, speech and natural language processing and Urdu localisation projects over the last five years.
 **Dr. Sarmad Hussain, Professor and Head of the Center for Language Engineering, specialises in the area of computer linguistics. He has led a number of projects on language processing, including the PAN Localization Project (www.panl10n.net).
 ***Ms Mahwish Bano holds a masters degree in computer science. She has been involved in lexicon development and multiple localisation projects over the past five years.
 **** Ms Aniqa Dilawari holds a masters degree in computer science. She has been involved in web development projects for the past two years and has recently started working on Urdu localisation standards for web development.
Floods in Sindh: Analysis of missing links in the pre- and post-flood flood scenario
Sanaullah Rustamani*
Floods in the year 2010 had catastrophic effects in the province of Sindh. According to a UN report, out of an estimated 20 million flood affectees of the country there are more than 7.3 million flood affected people in Sindh. An estimated 1.1 million homes have collapsed and about 1.5 million people live in relief camps. [1]
The Sindh government estimated that losses may exceed Rs. 700 billion. Flood water has devastated about 25 small and medium towns of Sindh. Owing to breaches in Machhar Lake, which is believed to be the largest sweet water lake of Asia, hundreds of villages located near Sehwan Sharif were engulfed with waters and an estimated 4,400 villages of Sindh are believed to be affected by floods. In the health sector, five Taluka hospitals have been inundated. Besides, an estimated 100 basic health units and 15 rural health centrrs were also flooded. In the education sector an estimated 9,900 small schools and 400 big schools were also deluged. [2]
In Sindh it is widely believed that the flood was man-made rather than a natural disaster. A heated debate is taking place in the print and electronic media of Sindh over the issue of breaches in the Indus River near Tori Bund at Kashmore district which led to the flood in Sindh. In the case of the pressure on the Indus River, the river water is required to be diverted to Ali Wahun, located at a distance of about 80 kilometers upstream in Sukkur, on the left side of the Indus River. But it is believed that certain local politicians are reported to be responsible for the water not reaching Ali Wahun. These politicians are reported to have stopped the water from Ali Wahun to save their personal properties. Hence, instead of diverting the huge flow of water to Ali Wahun, the Tori Bund of Indus River near Ghouspur was alleged to be given a deliberate cut to reduce the pressure from Sukkur Barrage [3]. Keeping in view the growing public demand for an explanation, the government of Sindh has set up a judicial commission but findings are yet to be known.
In Sindh, there was no pre-flood planning or management.. Precautionary measures, such as working on the embankments of the canals and protective bunds, were not taken.
Instead of working for the protection of towns and villages, authorities just informed the villagers to leave their homes and move to relief camps or to other safer places. The right bank of MNV Drain which inundated Johi town was clearly seen to be vulnerable but it was not repaired. Johi city of Dadu district, with a population of about 30,000, was in danger. Authorities issued last minute warnings to the residents to move to safer places. But the local people did not leave their towns and worked day and night on the protective embankments of the town, which resulted in the city being saved from inundation.
People in Sindh believe that it took about one month for the waters from Khyber Pakhtun Khwa crossing Punjab to reach Sindh so there was ample time available for the government including the irrigation department and National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) to take effective precautionary measures to save the cities and villages from floods but no empirical measures were found to be taken to face this catastrophic flood. It was only the efforts of the local residents that had some positive impact.
In Sindh, the post flood scenario is also alarming. The rehabilitation of millions of people is a huge challenge. People’s houses have collapsed. The standing crops of rice and cotton have been destroyed and the resultant financial crisis is causing malnutrition among men, women and children. Water and sanitation facilities are not available anymore. Stagnant water has led to many water borne diseases.
Instead of concentrating on solving the issues that the flood has caused it seems politicians are divided amongst themselves as are parliamentarians on the best way to tackle the issues. Civil society insists that flood-water should not be stored anywhere and it should be given a natural path to reach its ultimate destination--the Arabian Sea. They also suggest that the matter should be decided by technocrats and irrigation experts and that politicians should not demonstrate their personal opinions with regard to this national issue.
In this paper, I will discuss the issue of missing links in the management and coordination of the authorities to handle such disasters and to take decisive measures to save public property and life. In the prevailing scenario we should focus on addressing post-flood matters such as rehabilitation, construction of new houses, and availability of health and hygiene facilities. But to ensure fewer losses in ensuing disasters, pre-flood preparedness is also mandatory. Therefore the concluding session of my paper includes the following recommendations:
The Kacha area of the Indus river, which is its catchments area, is normally under the control of landlords and the feudal community. They irrigate the river land and construct their own embankments, which weakens the official embankments of the river. The illegal encrochments in the Kacha area should be removed.
- The irrigation and forest department should jointly take initiatives to grow more trees within the catchments area of the river.
- The embankments of rivers and canals should be repaired annually.
- The irrigation department of Sindh as a whole, needs revamping in order to avert disasters and yield required outputs.
- The towns and villages located in the flood zone should be given protective walls.
References:
[1] The UN report web link http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=36021
[2] Daily Dawn, Friday, 27 August, 2010
[3] Daily Times, Tuesday, September 14, 2010
 * Mr. Sanaullah Rustamani is a civil society activist and a research fellow enrolled for MPhil leading to PhD in English Department, International Islamic University, Islamabad and a columnist based at Hyderabad, Sindh.
Sustainable flood management strategy for Pakistan
Arshad H Abbasi*
Javeriya Hasan**
This paper describes the existing flood management strategies and measures for flood protection and flood management in Pakistan. The country has suffered a loss of about $9.5[1] billion (over Rs.800 billion) in the floods due to damages to crops, infrastructure and public and private property. The floods have killed 1,700 people to date and have affected more than 20 million.
As a consequence of the severe floods in 1976, the Federal Flood Commission of Pakistan (FFC) was established in 1977 to integrate flood management planning with national policy. The objective of FFC was to shift from a crisis-provoked approach, which is evidently adopted by the provinces, to a risk management approach for effective flood management. An FFC prepared the flood management policy, which mainly focused on execution of embankments but after spending more than 65 billion rupees, these embankments were of poor quality and could not withstand the current floods.
In this paper, the existing flood control, performance of FFC will be reviewed, analyzed, and bench-marked with flood management strategies of other south-Asian countries having a similar climate. In this paper, a new sustainable, integrated flood management strategy is proposed, braced with “win-win”’ solutions for securing sustainable development in Pakistan. The main objective of the paper is to introduce this new customized strategy to reduce poverty and strengthen hydrological hazard resilience in Pakistan. Furthermore, it is envisioned that a design methodology for the solution of the aforementioned problem would also be proposed.
*Mr. Abbasi graduated in Water and Renewable Energy from Engineering University Lahore and has a Masters in Engineering Management. Currently he is working as a consultant for various national and international organizations.
** Javeriya Hasan is a Research Assistant with SDPI and has career interests in green building. She has a Masters in Structural Steel Design and Sustainable Development from Imperial College, London.
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