Lack of flood preparedness: millions may be affected in coming monsoon

Flood affected community representatives, civil society members, independent experts have termed the 2011 flood relief and recovery strategy of the government as flawed and have also expressed concern that given the non serious attitude towards flood preparedness millions of more poor communities are feared to be affected in the coming monsoon of 2012.
These concerned were shown in a provincial level workshop on Successes & Challenges in Flood Advocacy Strategies in Sindh organised by Participatory Development Initiatives (PDI) jointly with Oxfam on Thursday in a local hotel. A number of advocacy networks including People's Accountability Commission on Floods (PACF), National Humanitarian Network (NHN) and others shared their advocacy strategies, successes and challenges. The participants of the workshop while discussing the issues of the flood affected communities expressed their concern on the fact that flood affected families have been denied the rights of the relief and recovery support despite their areas being notified by the government as the disaster hit in early days of the disaster in 2011.
According to the speakers of the workshop, the government had largely mismanaged the relief activities in the post flood situation as flood affected people were not properly registered. Relief was provided under political influence through the committees of MNAs and MPAs in place of giving space to the disaster response institutions including PDMA and DDMAs to distribute relief. The participants expressed concern over the fact that despite passage of 8 months still 30 percent of the flood affected areas is under water as the government agencies have completely failed in dewatering process.
The participants severely criticised the government of using schools as relief camps. This attitude, the participants said, has completely destroyed the education of the provinces as a large number of schools are serving as camps since more than year due to consecutive floods of 2010 and 2011. They expressed concern that government is even thinking to use schools as camps for the possible floods of 2012 which would further ruin the education of the province. The government should prepare alternative mechanisms for camping of the flood affected people, they demanded.
The participants of the workshop also criticised international humanitarian organisations on their failure to provide adequate relief and recovery support to the flood affected communities of Sindh. Even the international humanitarian organisations provide support on the basis of geo-strategic locations and Sindh being deliberately ignored, the workshop participants alleged. The participants also accused international humanitarian organisations of funding pocket organisations and making recruitments from outside Sindh for Sindh related projects.-PR