KARACHI is at high risk of natural and manmade disasters. The Gul Plaza episode revealed multiple vulnerabilities relevant to disaster preparedness. According to the district-level risk assessment of the federal government’s National Disaster Management Plan (2012–22), Karachi appears to rank first in terms of overall disaster risk among Pakistan’s districts, based on the combined hazard score used. However, when it comes to adaptive capacity, resilience and disaster response, there’s no city-specific overarching policy or institutional framework in place for Karachi. Policies and institutions, when activated, draw on provincial legislation and institutions, such as the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) and provincial climate change policies.

In disaster planning and response, local municipal agencies play a pivotal role in close coordination with centralised emergency management authorities. For Karachi, city-level municipal bodies are neither mandated nor empowered with human and technical resources and finance to play such a role. This shortcoming is at the root of the crisis. City-scale civic and administrative authorities work at best as appendages to provincial government entities. The Sindh Local Government Act, 2013, provides the provincial government with strong control over LG functions, thereby reducing LG autonomy. This power and authority imbalance creates fissures in overall service delivery and, critically, in disaster preparedness, which requires a rapid, coordinated response at the grassroots. An example is seen in the Multi-Hazard Vulnerability Risk Assessment for climate and adaptive resilience, prepared by the PDMA, Sindh, where all background data and recommendations have been disaggregated to the union committee/council level and for UClevel capacitation; the plan sets out a well-thought-out objectives framework, but which can’t be realised given the UCs’ weak institutional capacity.

This level of dysfunction extends further in relations with the Karachi Metropolitan Corporationand related entities. Earlier, there were seven district municipal corporations that lacked an organic, viable working relationship with the KMC. Now the situation is further compounded by a recent decision to divide the land jurisdiction and mandate of the seven DMCs into the newly constituted 25 town municipal corporations. Decentr­alisation of service delivery itself is advisable. The problem arises, as in Karachi’s case, when decentralised entities are not organically connected for synergy, and the respective mandates are either misplaced or overlap. Then, on a wider scale, weak land planning, building control, and enforcement functions directly affect performance in terms of emergency access to settlements, the resilience of built-up areas and the availability of emergency healthcare facilities.

Karachi should be served by a comprehensive plan.

It is a matter of urgency that the city is served by a comprehensive ‘Disaster Risk Management and Resilience Building Plan’. The proposed plan, while it will need to complement the NDMA/ PDMAdisaster management frameworks, should stand on its own to cater to the city’s specific needs and be supported by the appropriate policy and institutional architecture to ensure implementation. Such a plan should be preceded by a holistic vulnerability assessment of critical institutions and facilities needed to respond to any disaster, natural or man-made. The shortcomings identified need to be plugged first and may involve, among other things, a well-organised database, human res­ou­rce dev­elopment, tec­h­nical and fina­­­ncial cap­acity-building, stren­­­­gthening existing institutional structures or setting up new empowered institutions, and ensuring smooth departmental and intra-departmental coordination mechanisms. In addition, based on identified physical and institutional vulnerabilities, facilities and infrastructure — including road links, health facilities, first responders, fire services, and evacuation shelters — should be strengthened.

When hoping for a strong, viable DRMplan for Karachi capable of optimal implementation, we find ourselves in a complicated space. Over the years, the city has evolved without any planning umbrella, relying instead on ad hoc, discretionary interventions. As a result, human, physical and institutional vulnerabilities have grown in magnitude and scale. Political contestations have led to a dysfunctional governance architecture for leveraging policy frameworks for effective implementation on the ground. However, any opportunity to build consensus for more shared progress and resilience-building should not be wasted.

The writer is an urban planner and associate professor of practice, Habib University.

farhan.anwar@ahss.habib.edu.pk

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2026