Daily Times

Climatic calamities keep on rising globally. Nations are preparing themselves for the new climatic normal through adaptation mechanisms. They are also getting ready for the mitigation measures in case of natural disasters happen there. Even countries starved for resources are informing, educating and taking their stakeholders on board, engaging communities, civil society and the private sector engaged with the government organizations. Policies and strategies are coming up on an emergency basis, and are being translated into action plans.

Contrarily, Pakistan is lagging behind in taking concrete measures to inform and engage citizens, development partners and actual stakeholders in implementation. Several cities faced historic worst flash floods. Unprecedented and unfrequented. Karachi and tail-cities of Sindh province, Swat, Chitral, and many other parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) were badly affected. The government agencies are trying to restore the road-links to different parts in the Northern region. Thousands are on roadsides under the open sky in the tail-cities of South Punjab and Sindh province.

This is not the first time. Pakistan had seen the worst of floods in 2010. A decade after, we have seen even more losses of lives, livelihood and infrastructure. Only Karachi has ended up with the damages amounting to billions of rupees. Surveys are being done in different parts of the country to assess the actual losses. Undoubtedly, they would be beyond the expected. What the federal and provincial governments would end up to do is to repair the infrastructure only. Affected and aggrieved public would remain unattended as usual.

Over the years, we have seen some flood management plans prepared by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) with the participation of the Federal Flood Commission and several other national and provincial agencies. Somehow they delivered too. But what actually is needed to have vigorous planning for sustainable urban management. Only a couple of efficient measures would ensure safety of people and their belongings.

Firstly, collection of solid waste and its efficient management. The usual practice in many cities is that the garbage is not collected efficiently. That is the key challenge. Even if all the trash and garbage is collected, where would it go? Even the metropolitan cities have no answer to it despite solutions being available.

Sewage is another big challenge. The drains are choked because we throw away our plastics and other solid waste into drains. We think there is no other option though segregation is one of the best practices being done in most of the countries. We have failed to do so even the easiest practices. We could not attach economic incentive to solid waste segregation for common people though mechanisms and best practices are available. The authorities only need to replicate these cost efficient practices at every household through community-based measures.

Most imperative is to remove encroachments that we have built up on the pathways of the natural flow of rain-water. Whether it is Malir Naddi encroached by the DHA or the Gujjar nullah by MQM, or whosoever have grabbed nullahs should be taken to task on an emergency basis.

All these steps cannot be taken without a joint committee or taskforce of all stakeholders including law enforcing agencies. Since all the actions would have been taken locally, federal and provincial governments should go for strong local governance, mainstreaming of climate adaptation and meaningful planning and implementation of disaster management.

Private sector could also be engaged to support the city governments. The government should provide soft loans and incentives to the private sector to manage its sewage, water and sanitation, and solid waste management

All this needs to have vigorous policy advocacy and incorporation of climate vulnerability into the development projects, besides awareness raising among the stakeholders including grassroots communities. All federal government policy frameworks would mean nothing if provinces don’t adopt it in a letter and spirit and trickle down funds to strengthen the local governance.

We need to understand that natural resources are decreasing with the increasing climate impact. To sufficiently cater the needs of the people, we need to control the rapidly increasing population. The per capita social investment has already decreased. Water is the most essential commodity that has already decreased from 5500 to less than 1000 liter per capita. So, the newborns would face further shortage of water. So, the same is the case with amenities.

Last Saturday, Development Communications Network (Devcom-Pakistan) organized a webinar on the subject matter. Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Climate Change Malik Amin Aslam reiterated that Pakistan’s vulnerability to climate impact was rising very fast. In recent years, the frequency and intensity of extreme events has gone up by three times while the funding resources have been reduced. We need to act efficiently on adaptation mechanisms for which the climate induced practices and development need to be promoted on all levels. After the 18th amendment, the provinces are more responsible for taking care of the grassroots management of sewage, water and sanitation, encroachments on the pathways of the flash floods.

This is quite unfortunate that we don’t have one umbrella body to take holistic decisions in any city. Several agencies and disintegrated decisions make the cities and people living there more vulnerable to uncertain situations. The most vulnerable cities need to take firm actions more briskly. The megacity Karachi, Lahore and other large 20 cities need to act upon swiftly to control damage to lives and livelihood by taking on adaptation mechanisms on a grassroots level. Several policy steps have been taken by the federal government to combat the climate change impact. They just need to tailor it according to their need and implement it.

Private sector could also be engaged to support the city governments. The government should provide soft loans and incentives to the private sector to manage its sewage, water and sanitation, and solid waste management. We have a good example from Sialkot where the business community have developed many facilities for themselves facilitating their businesses and trade. Why not they be engaged in sustainable urban management.

The writer is a freelance journalist and broadcaster, Director Devcom-Pakistan, a policy advocacy and outreach think tank in Islamabad. His email: devcom.pakistan@gmail.com Twitter Handle: @EmmayeSyed