The monsoon downpour in Pakistan is over, and with this, the mention of the plight of flood survivors in Pakistan too. There is little talk about the state of food security, provision of drinking water, health, energy, livelihoods and infrastructure repair/ rehabilitation in flood-affected areas. In the next six to nine months, flood survivors will be braving the winter, followed by possible heatwaves and a sizzling summer and the next monsoon season.

Keeping in view Pakistan’s ‘mixed’ rehabilitation track record for the deadly 2005 earthquake and the 2010 floods, it is difficult to say if and by when the country will be able to build back (or forward) better in the flood-affected areas. Researchers and analysts are not fortune tellers. They cannot make a prophecy about the state of flood survivors in the near to medium future. However, learning from past experiences, mapping existing trends, and counting on the presence (or absence) of certain factors, one can certainly build some post-flood scenarios that may emerge around the middle of next year.

Such futuristic scenario-building exercise is important today to assess our strengths and start preparing for the likely challenges (old and new) that the government and the people will have to face in the run-up to general elections and the next monsoon.

Where we are

The flood in Pakistan, which the UN secretary-general described as climate carnage and the World Bank as a once-in-a-lifetime shock, has affected 33 million people, including 16 million children (according to the UNICEF). According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance (OCHA), the floods have swept away 2 million houses and displaced almost eight million people. Around 600,000 are in relief camps, while millions are living under the open sky, surrounded by stagnant water and deprived of basic livelihoods.

According to the World Bank, crops on 9.4 million acres have been affected. Floods have washed away vast amounts of stored wheat, 15-20 percent of the cultivated area under rice and almost 30 percent under cotton. A vast cropped area is still under flood waters that have yet to recede. Land demarcation issue where the water has receded is also a major challenge in many areas.

Land preparation and sowing of wheat, which usually starts early in Sindh, is greatly affected due to the uncertainty about when the water will recede. This, along with a loss of more than one million livestock, means Pakistan is facing a huge hunger crisis.

Preliminary estimates by the World Bank suggest that the national poverty rate could increase because of recent floods by 4.5 to 7 percentage points, pushing between 9.9 million and 15.4 million people into poverty and intensifying the severity of poverty for already poor households.

According to the UNICEF, 10 million children in Pakistan’s flood-affected areas are in need of immediate, lifesaving support and assistance. These children are at an increased risk of waterborne diseases, drowning and malnutrition. The UNICEF estimates that damage to water supply systems and sanitation facilities has resulted in 5.5 million people no longer having access to safe drinking water.

According to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), 2,000 health facilities, representing 10 percent of all health facilities in the country, have either been damaged or destroyed. As a result, over eight million people in flood-affected districts urgently need health assistance.

The numbers provided above are mind-boggling. They are in millions, greater than the total population of many individual countries. The state of affairs presented above in Pakistan’s 84 calamity-hit districts is in addition to other internal and external challenges facing Pakistan.

One of the major prerequisites for sustained and effective rehabilitation is political stability. The current political crisis will keep distracting the government and its development partners from the job of rehabilitating the flood survivors.

The recently released regional and global economic outlooks by the World Bank and the IMF can be summarised in one sentence: the (region and the) world are in a perfect storm. Struggling to recover from Covid-19, the world sees its resilience tested. Due to the Russia-Ukraine war, global energy prices are expected to remain very high, leading to cost-push inflation amidst decelerating growth. Both the World Bank and the IMF have lowered their global GDP growth forecasts.

In economic terms, slow growth and high inflation are called stagflation. The world is facing stagflation and an acute energy shortage. Pakistan is no exception to it. The tidal effects of the war in Ukraine are turning it difficult for Pakistan’s development partners to support its efforts for rehabilitation. The government alone will not be able to spare resources for this gigantic task.

Even if Pakistan tries to meet these obligations through its indigenous resources, it will face the challenge of remaining within the fiscal deficit target under the ongoing IMF programme. While it is highly crucial to curtail the energy circular debt, letting go of energy subsidies under the IMF programme will have inflationary impacts adding to the woes of Pakistan’s people and the government.

In the context mentioned above, building post-flood scenarios is not very difficult.

Scenario one: Business as usual.

Things as they exist now where millions are suffering, is not an option. It will simply lead to second scenario, i.e., a worst-case scenario. Imagine a lack of action on the health front, and there will be an outbreak of waterborne diseases, issues of mother and child healthcare, delayed immunisation against polio and other diseases, and problems that occur due to a lack of hygiene and sanitation facilities.

Inaction on food security and revival of agriculture in flood-affected areas can translate into severe hunger and malnutrition. Failure in providing clean drinking water would also aggravate food insecurity. Drinking contaminated water leads to food poisoning and other water-borne diseases. Likewise, agriculture and livestock are the primary sources of livelihood in many flood-affected areas. Remaining indifferent on rural livelihoods would acerbate poverty and hunger.

Life cannot be normal for flood survivors unless they have a roof over their heads and can live in a dignified manner. Ignore providing shelter, and all other efforts for rehabilitation will be futile.

Lastly, political unrest is another factor that may lead to a worst-case scenario. One of the major prerequisites for sustained and effective rehabilitation is political stability. The current political crisis will keep distracting the government and its development partners from the task of rehabilitating the flood survivors.

The best-case scenario

Many of the rehabilitation challenges can be managed if we remove the road blocks identified in worst case scenarios above to provide health, food, drinking water, shelter and livelihoods to flood survivors. It is easier said than done but it is doable.

All eighty-four calamity-hit districts are unique in terms of local resilience, strengths and vulnerabilities. Keeping these peculiarities in mind, we need to start with district-level rehabilitation plans. Focusing on reviving agriculture, ensuring food security, health services, drinking water, shelter and livelihoods at district level will be much easier, provided coordinated efforts are made to develop and implement district recovery and rehabilitation plans.

Making plans, identifying and mobilising resources for those plans with the help of international development partners and the corporate sector, and transparently implementing those through community involvement is a proven method of building forward better.

The primary prerequisite for a best-case scenario is lowering the political temperature and reducing political instability. Without that, our rehabilitation efforts will remain unreliable and non-coordinated for international development partners. While eyeing next year’s elections, our political and apolitical elites should not ignore the plight of “one out of every seven” Pakistanis in the coming winter, summer and the next monsoon.

The writer heads the Sustainable Development Policy Institute. He tweets @abidsuleri