Pakistan is recognised among the most at-risk and vulnerable countries of the world. The Inform Risk Index in 2019 ranked Pakistan 18th out of 191 countries because of its exposure to earthquakes and flooding – riverine, flash, and coastal – as well as tropical cyclones and droughts. The country experiences some of the worst natural disasters in the region as a major part of the country is situated on fault lines or in the path of melting glaciers, facing risk of torrential rains as experienced in 2022. Floods in 2010 also engulfed a large part of the country, mostly agricultural land; while heatwaves in 2010, 2016, and 2024 claimed hundreds of lives and left thousands affected.
Climate change, which used to be a buzzword, is now a threatening reality that this third-world country is ill-equipped to cope with and needs support from the developed world to tackle climate change related disasters. It was ranked as the fifth most vulnerable country to climate change (Global Climate Risk Index) despite its low contribution to global greenhouse gas, which was only 0.9% in 2021. Unless Pakistan receives financial support from the international community to combat and adapt to the climate crisis, it would only aggravate the pressures on Pakistan’s already weak economy and reduce the gross domestic product (GDP) by 18 to 20% per year by 2050.
In October 2022, a month before COP 27 was held at Sharm-El-Sheikh in Egypt, the World Bank estimated Pakistan needed at least $16.3 billion for rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts. This hints at the magnitude of the disaster. Fast forward to November 2022, a fund was established to deal with the ‘loss and damage caused by climate-induced disasters’. Like other disaster-prone regions, Pakistan gets funds that are earmarked for reconstruction, rehabilitation, and rescue. Still, these funds are never divided based on gender needs, especially women who are the most vulnerable.
To put things into perspective, the 2022 floods submerged a third of Pakistan, killing more than 1,760 people and impacting more than 33 million people, 80% of whom were women, including about 600,000 pregnant women, who were deprived of access to good healthcare and forced to give birth under the open sky. The floods left about eight million girls and women without access to basic menstrual hygiene products.
We are just another family hit by a calamity. Do you think the relief will reach us? We hear that the government will send relief, but so far, nothing. What can you do for me? Can you ensure the government sends relief? - Flood affected in Mirpurkhas Fatima Bibi
Fatima Bibi found herself in a makeshift tent on the curb of the main road leading to Mirpurkhas, watching cars rush past. Her life as she once knew it ended when flood waters submerged her village one night in June 2022, forcing people to evacuate quickly and find dry land.
She was just one of the thousands of women who had lost everything in the flood and were forced to live in makeshift tents exposed to all kinds of threats. Unable to salvage anything from the village, Fatima Bibi and her family were forced to try to survive with what little they had.
Fatima Bibi was the matriarchal head of her displaced family. Her husband, a snake charmer, had left to “look for relief” and had not returned, leaving her to look after the family. The family comprised her two married sons, their wives—one of them pregnant—and her younger children and grandchildren. They huddled in the makeshift tents as it rained constantly.
“We have been living in our makeshift homes for days, waiting for someone to help us, send aid, medical supplies, and most importantly, food”, Fatima Bibi had said. “We lost everything in the flood, and now this is our life. We have no food, no clothes, and I fear my children will get sick constantly being drenched by the rain.”
Her main concern was her pregnant daughter-in-law, who was in her last trimester, “This is her first pregnancy. I am worried about her delivery, especially with no medical help.”
Responding to whether anyone had come to help them, she laughed wryly, saying no one cared, adding, “We are just another family hit by a calamity. Do you think the relief will reach us? We hear that the government will send relief, but so far, nothing. What can you do for me? Can you ensure the government sends relief?”
Fatima Bibi’s acceptance of reality was scary. She knew she was not a priority for the government, and even if she did manage to get her hands on some support to ease her immediate sufferings, it would take years for her family to fully recover from the losses.
Fatima was just one of the hundreds of thousands of women impacted by the flood in 2022, and there new Fatimas like her spring up (sometimes the same ones are victimised again when tragedies visit the same areas again) in every disaster: the poor are the most affected, the government response is slow and inadequate, and it takes years to rehabilitate and recover what was lost. Similar stories of helplessness were seen during the 2005 earthquake that killed between 79,000 and 86,000 people, injuring more than 70,000 and rendering about 2.8 million people displaced. It took more than a decade for people to rebuild their lives as government funds were slowly allocated.
Women are more vulnerable during natural disasters and are disproportionately impacted compared to men. In poor communities, particularly in rural areas, there is a high percentage of women who are highly dependent on local natural resources for their livelihood, where they shoulder the major responsibility for household water supply and energy for cooking and heating, as well as for food security. Despite this, the government and other donors ignore them. Women have different needs to men, so special funds should be allocated and used to arrange specific relief.
Commenting on the vulnerability of women during natural disasters, Bushra Arain, founder, and chairperson of the All Pakistan Lady Health Worker’s Association, said, “Many lady health workers in Sindh also worked in the rehabilitation process during the floods (2022) and found that women faced many issues including health and pregnancy issues. One significant problem that was ignored was the lack of menstrual hygiene products and lack of privacy.” She further added that considering the conservative setup, women were finding it difficult to go about their routine lives, which was causing a lot of stress among younger women. She said it was important that funds allocated to disaster-hit areas have a gender component specifically for women impacted by natural disasters.
In many developing countries, not just in Pakistan, women suffer from gender inequalities with respect to human rights, political and economic status, exposure to violence, education and health. “Worldwide, women have less access than men to resources such as land, credit, agricultural inputs, decision-making structures, technology, training, and extension services that would enhance their capacity to adapt to climate change.” – (UN Report “To Protect Succeeding Generations...", 2009”). Climate change further aggravates their vulnerability, as sociocultural norms and childcare prevents women from seeking refuge in other places when natural disasters happen. They are burdened with extra responsibilities such as travelling longer to get drinking water and wood for fuel. Other threats to their well-being, such as domestic violence, sexual intimidation, human trafficking and rape also persist during such times.
On October 19, 2024, the World Bank (WB) announced that it had delivered a record $42.6 billion (10% more than the previous year) for climate change financing in the last fiscal year. WB further added, “around 44% of the World Bank Group’s total financing of $97 billion had a climate financing component”; this included ‘lending, along with other financial instruments.’
Apart from local financier, funds are also coming into Pakistan from international financing institutions or multilateral development banks (MDB), at least on paper. However, the question is how it benefits the citizens of Pakistan. There are multiple issues with the lending of banks like the World Bank, and that is that a large portion of the funds is money lent as in loans and not grants, which means that the ultimate burden to pay off these loans will fall on the common people that will be collected through regressive tax rates, utility bills, petrol, etc.
A good example is the housing project in Mirpurkhas, Sindh, based on the Heritage Foundation’s Zero Carbon Alternative Model which endeavours to build sustainable communities and rehabilitate one million households in collaboration with the Bank of Punjab.
Regretablly, the people who are the most affected have neither a voice in the decision-making process, nor do the MDBs take their needs into account. This lack of consultation disconnects the two and that is why the funds provided by the MDBs are problematic. The process needs to be more transparent and inclusive, taking into consideration how it affects the most vulnerable.
A major part of the funds is used for rebuilding and rehab, and women’s needs, and their health are not taken into consideration. Just rebuilding a house to provide a roof for the family is not enough. The government and aid organisations must consider other essential yet invisible needs of the affected families that are left up to women to fulfil—procuring clean drinking water, the health care of their children, the elderly, and, of course, themselves, education for their children, etc.
It is time to bridge the gender gap in climate financing. Every donor should specifically mention the funds that are only for women in disaster areas. A good example is the housing project in Mirpurkhas, Sindh, based on the Heritage Foundation’s Zero Carbon Alternative Model which endeavours to build sustainable communities and rehabilitate one million households in collaboration with the Bank of Punjab. Women are trained to build elevated homes and stoves made from clay and straw to protect them from flood water. The construction is done so that the families do not have to leave their homes and can continue to cook despite the flood waters. They have been trained to make and sell their products, especially the elevated stoves, and earn a living. The money is deposited into their accounts, which only they can access through ATM cards.