Pakistan Floods One Year On

As Pakistan marks the one-year anniversary of the worst floods in living memory, the aid agency, Oxfam, has warned that the country is still unprepared for the monsoon season.

In a new report " Ready or not? Pakistan's resilience to disasters, one year on from the floods", Oxfam said that families had not fully recovered from last year's disaster and were likely to fall even deeper into poverty if hit by floods again. Oxfam is calling on the Pakistan government and donors to invest more in more in measures to reduce the impact of disasters.

This could include flood resistant housing, and effective early warning systems - especially at the village level. The cost of reconstruction for last year's floods is estimated at more than ten billion dollars; but investing an initial 27 million dollars, backed up with yearly top ups, to improve disaster management would make a huge difference in making Pakistan better-prepared for future emergencies.

 

Follow Caroline Gluck on Twitter: www.twitter.com/carooxfam

Comments

[Squeezer55]

02:56 PM on 08/03/2011

Pakistan has the highest birth rate and lowest education levels in the world . This combination has produced a country that can't afford to sustain itself yet sees no need to legalize access to birth control and listens to the clerics who keep telling them to have more babies. Floods and other natural disasters are natures way of trying to tell Pakistan that if it won't control its population - nature will.
But it's not only the clerics fault - the government is corrupt and has been corrupt almost from the beginning of the country. Years ago it sought the help of Canada and its heavy water nuclear technology to build a modern electrical system for its country. Instead it used the technology to build a nuclear bomb - corrupt government . Flash forward to recent times - the government appointed security for Banizer Bhutto disappears just before she is assasinated - still corrupt government. Last year the military diverted flood waters away from military bases flooding nearby towns . They then blamed wealthy local landowners - corrupt government.

They may be fighting bad media and other outside influences but they are their own worst enemy.

[SaulZ]

08:32 PM on 08/02/2011

With Indian lobby, hard core neo-cons from US establishment, and generally an anti-Pakistani media being fed from Indian and Israeli lobbies spreading negative propaganda against Pakistan 24x7, what chance has Pakistan got to stabilize itself and prepare for disasters? I am originally from Pakistan, having settled in the USA in 1983 and now working in Canada due to economic turmoil at home. I can safely say that most of Pakistan's decision makers' time must be going in fighting the negative propaganda rather than planning for a good cause. Sitting in Toronto, I am pained at one negative story about Pakistan after another in the print and electronic media. USA has made Pakistan its scapegoat for the defeat it is sure to face in Afghanistan. Its covert operations in Pakistan are also destabilizing the country. I am amazed at the resilience of its people, but am not sure how will the people continue to cope against all these odds.

[Climp Jones]

07:12 PM on 08/02/2011

Between Pakistan, North Korea and Myanmar I don't know which is the strangest.