What flood-hit Pakistan could learn from Bangladesh today

Empowerment delivers disaster resilience and a stronger economy

- DAVID FICKLING

What do you do when you find yourself abandoned in your hour of greatest need? That's the question many in Pakistan will be asking as a second flood disaster in three years looms. Monsoon rainfall in Punjab has already affected 2 million people and killed at least 880. About 60% of Punjab's rice crop and 30% of its sugarcane is lost.

Worse may be yet to come. The rainy season won't end for another month and the waters are now crossing into Sindh, the province worst-hit by 2022 floods that submerged a third of the country, killed more than 1,700 people, caused $40 billion of damage and cut economic growth by 2.2 percentage points. Pakistan's roughly 250 million people had barely begun to recover from that. Of the $30 billion sought to rebuild the country after 2022, only $11 billion was pledged by development banks and other donors, and just $4.5 billion has been spent on flood recovery by this June.

That's less than the roughly $4.6 billion of 'aid' in the donor package dedicated by oil exporters to allow Pakistan to pay for its crude imports on credit—hardly the best way of responding to a disaster made more likely by climate change. Development banks can't accept all the blame, though: There simply weren't enough investable projects looking for funds, according to finance minister Muhammad Aurangzeb.