JACOBABAD: US President Donald Trump’s foreign aid freeze threatens the vital supply of fresh and filtered water in one of the world’s hottest cities.

Sun-parched Jacobabad in southern Sindh sometimes surpasses 50 degrees Celsius amid increasing heatwaves, causing health problems like dehydration and heat-stroke.

In 2012, USAID committed a $66 million grant to uplift Sindh’s municipal services, including the flagship renovation of a plant pumping and purifying water from a canal 22km away.

But Pakistani non-profit HANDS says Trump’s aid embargo has blocked $1.5 million earmarked to make the scheme viable in the long-term, putting the project at risk “within a few months”.

Jacobabad scheme may stop functioning within the next few months; project will be ‘a total failure’ unless another donor steps in

“This has transformed our lives,” 25-year-old Tufail Ahmed said. In Jacobabad, even wintertime temperatures are already forecast to pass 30C by next week.

The project pipes in 1.5 million gallons (5.7 million litres) daily and serves about 350,000 people in Jacobabad, HANDS says — a city where grinding poverty is commonplace.

“If the water supply is cut off it will be very difficult for us,” he added. “Survival will be challenging, as water is the most essential thing for life.”

HANDS said it discovered Trump’s 90-day freeze on foreign assistance through media reports with no prior warning.

“Since everything is just suspended we have to withdraw our staff and we have to withdraw all services for this water project,” HANDS CEO Shaikh Tanveer Ahmed said.

Forty-seven staff, including experts who manage the water purification and service the infrastructure, have been sent home.

The scheme is currently in the hands of the local government who lack the technical or revenue collection expertise HANDS was developing to fund the supply from bill payments, rather than donations.

The service will likely stop functioning “within the next few months”, Ahmed predicted, and the project will be “a total failure” unless another funder steps in.

Pakistan — home to more than 240 million people — ranks as the nation most affected by climate change, according to non-profit Germanwatch’s Climate Risk Index released this year and analysing data from 2022.

The country produces less than one percent of global greenhouse gas emissions which scientists say are driving human-made climate change.

Jacobabad’s water system also suffered heavy damage in the 2010 floods which killed almost 1,800 and affected 21 million.

Between September and mid-January Sindh saw rainfall 52 percent below average according to the Pakistan Meteorological Department, with “moderate drought” predicted in the coming months.

Published in Dawn, February 22nd, 2025