While the losses from the ongoing floods continue to mount, there is an early impression that the international community has not meaningfully come to the rescue of a flooded Pakistan yet. That perception is not contrary to the facts. This may change in the future, considering that the reporting on the real gravity and scale of losses of lives, crops, livelihoods and dwellings is beginning to come to light.
The UN’s $160 million flash appeal was launched a week ago, and so far there is little international response. As per the latest data from the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN-OCHA), only $2.8 million of funds (1.7% of the appeal) have been mobilized so far. Within the $160 million appeal, UN has required $48 million for food security and agriculture, $31 million for shelter and non-food items, $25 million for water and sanitation, and $23 million for health.
As highlighted in this space before, the global humanitarian flows are already occupied with meeting financing needs relating to the ongoing war in Ukraine as well as humanitarian crises in places like Afghanistan, Yemen. Syria, among other crisis-affected and hunger-hit countries. Also note that prior appeals and plans by the UN this year are already severely under-funded, owing to limited assistance from the international community.
In that context, unless some big global intervention is planned (one that is spearheaded by the US, the largest global aid donor), the government’s ‘Pakistan Floods Response Plan 2022’ will likely starve for funds. It doesn't really help that the international community, of which the Western bloc is the driving force, has previously not been happy by Pakistan’s foreign policy when it came to two other crises of late: the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the fallout in Afghanistan post-NATO pullout. The US and its European allies typically account for over three-quarters of global aid.
Having said that, if the international community chose to sit idly by and only helped Pakistan with token announcements of a few millions here and a few millions there, it would damage their cause for a global response to climate change. Of late, several leading western publications have highlighted how Pakistan, which produces a fraction of global GHG emissions, is a frontline state battling climate change, ravaged not only by floods but also by heat waves, faster glacier melts and highly-irregular weather patterns.
Several experts have by now warned that the current crisis, where a third of the area of this large-sized, low-income country is under water, is much greater than the combined organizational capabilities and financials capacities of public the sector and the local aid organizations. Aside from financial help, what Pakistan really needs from the world right now is the technical assistance to plan and organize a mass-scale intervention on an immediate basis. Time is running out fast, with a far bigger tragedy in the offing.