KARACHI: World Bank (WB) will contribute Rs14.80 billion as part of the FEC of Sindh Resilience Project (SRP). The total cost of the project is Rs15.30 billion, out of which almost Rs500 million would be funded by Sindh government, working paper of the project revealed.
The project aims to strengthen the provincial systems to effectively responding to emergencies and disasters by building capacity at provincial, divisional and district levels, which will improve the service delivery of public institutions.
The project will support the National Disaster Management Act, Government of Pakistan's Framework of Economic Growth, National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP) and National Disaster Risk Reduction Policy.
Furthermore, the project is directly related to National Action Plan for Preparedness and Response to coronavirus in particular and pandemics in general. It will strengthen the capacity and protocols for mortuary services in cities to enable safe and ethical management of cadavers in case of a mass fatality event.
The project objective fully complements the Country Vision 2025 development strategy through enhanced resilience against natural disasters. The project also fulfills Sustainable Development Goal by recognizing that poverty is a multi-dimensional issue, with factors ranging from unemployment to social exclusion, vulnerability to natural disasters, susceptibility to disease vectors, and more.
It aims to increase health and well-being of people of all ages. By providing more efficient funding to health systems, improving sanitation and hygiene, increasing access to physicians, and reducing ambient pollution, significant progress is expected to be made saving the lives of millions.
The overall needs in Sindh for enhancing resilience to natural disasters, including public health emergencies, are significant and require concentrated efforts by disaster response agencies.
Prior to COVID-19, the role of disaster management agencies was traditionally focused on natural disasters, primarily extreme events. But the recent pandemic has highlighted the deep interlinks between the health sector and emergency response, as well as the need to improve the resilience of health systems.
Keeping in view the same the proposed project will support integration of Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Sindh with the health sector to improve emergency response and resource management during public health emergencies. This will be a pioneering approach in the disaster management paradigm of the country which can serve as an example for other provinces.
Being a relatively new institution, the support from the ongoing project mainly focused on institution building for PDMA. But there are capacity challenges beyond institutional development which need to be addressed; there is no centralized emergency rescue service operating in Sindh which significantly restricts the response capacity of PDMA Sindh.
In the urban context, the lack of an emergency service in Karachi, a city of more than 15 million residents, significantly undermines the government's response planning and capacity. The project will support establishment of Sindh Emergency Service to address this critical gap in disaster and emergency management architecture of the province.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2020
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