KARACHI: Speakers at a discussion held on Tuesday at a local hotel called upon the government to make disaster management bodies functional at the district level to effectively tackle and reduce the risks posed by disasters, both natural and man-made.

These bodies, they said, should comprise trained staff that worked round-the-clock without requiring involvement of the deputy commissioner on a daily basis, as was required under the institutional framework.

The provincial dialogue on the need for a disaster risk reduction policy for Sindh was organised by the Centre for Environmental Development (Cead) in collaboration with Action Aid-Pakistan.

Starting off the programme with a presentation on a position paper titled ‘Disaster risk reduction: contextual assessment of challenges and opportunities in Sindh’ (prepared by the event organisers), Nasir Panhwar, representing Cead, said that Pakistan was prone to natural disasters that included earthquakes, both riverine and tribal flooding and even draught.

“Such disasters can seriously impact critical national development sectors such as agriculture, transportation and civic infrastructure, housing and social sectors, including health and education,” he said, adding that natural disasters, particularly, extreme weather events, now coming with greater frequency were a cause of significant concern.

‘Climate change threat poses a greater security threat than terrorism’

The floods of 2010, 2011 and 2012 stood as a poignant reminder of the climate change adaptation challenge faced by our policymakers, planners and administrators, he said.

Pakistan being a signatory to the UN Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015, he said, was required to make disaster risk reduction an essential component of national development policies.

Referring to the National Disaster Risk Reduction Policy 2013, Mr Panhwar said that it identified three critical existing challenges; low level of risk awareness and knowledge in society, lack of inclusion of disaster risk reduction concepts in development plans and insufficient disaster risk reduction capacity at all levels in society.

“The policy says that the gaps can be addressed by creating an integrated national capacity to identify and monitor vulnerability and hazard trends, including potential climate change impact,” he said.

After the presentation, the floor was opened for comments.

Participants comprising experts from diverse fields shared concerns relating to poor governance and lack of implementation of official plans and strategies.

They said that all 23 districts faced disaster challenges of different kinds and there was a need to make separate disaster risk reduction strategies for each geographic area.

“The climate change threat poses a greater security threat than terrorism as it can affect temperature, the environment, the economy and future policies of the country,” former secretary of forest and wildlife Shamsul Haq Memon said.

Most speakers from the audience criticised the government for its failure in effectively handling past natural disasters and said that unless a strong political will emerged in the province, the situation on the ground would not change.

Dr Sono Khangrani, a civil society activist and the chief executive officer of Hisaar Foundation, called for reflection on past disasters to prepare a report on the lessons learnt so far.

“Though there was a huge difference between the flood disaster that occurred in 2010 and the one we had in 2011, there was no difference in government response. It was poor in both cases,” he observed.

Some speakers suggested that a disaster must not be looked at only in terms of a natural calamity but terror incidents like bomb blasts should also be included in it. There was concern that Karachi with a population of over 23 million didn’t have a trauma centre to handle patients in case of a disaster.

It was also pointed out that a disaster risk policy for the province was developed at the official level a few years ago and now it’s the responsibility of the Provincial Disaster Mana­gement Authority to update the document.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2015

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