ON the night of Nov 12, 1970, Cyclone Bhola — one of the worst natural disasters in recorded history — struck the shores of former East Pakistan. Around 350,000 lives were lost. With damage estimated at $86m (inflation adjusted to $1bn today) relief was slow to arrive.
The government of Yahya Khan came under severe criticism from Bengali leaders and from the local and international press. This Category 3 hurricane and its aftermath were to change the course of history.
This time the Indus River basin, a cradle of ancient civilisations and one of the world’s largest natural resource has been the scene of a human catastrophe. Prime Minister Gilani has already termed the situation as being beyond the capacity of the government alone. This is indeed true. The damage to infrastructure alone has been staggering, with roads, bridges, power plants, refineries, dams, barrages and the irrigation system damaged across all four provinces, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.
In a snap, 750,000 destroyed and damaged houses have been added to the national housing backlog of 7.5 million units. With some 1,600 dead and 14 million displaced, millions others are at risk of infections and waterborne diseases. Further beyond, tens of millions stand to lose their meagre capital and means of livelihood as crops and livestock are destroyed, markets do not operate, shops collapse and transport and communications come to a standstill.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain estimates early losses at $2bn whilst Chief Minister Azam Khan Hoti terms this the worst natural disaster that has pushed back the province by 50 years. In Sindh and Punjab, the mainstay agricultural industry has been decimated. Crops and livestock spread over 1.6m acres in Punjab’s agricultural heartland have been destroyed. While cotton and rice have already been affected, farmers may not be able to sow their next season crops as their cash cycle is interrupted. Meanwhile, according to the United Nations World Food programme, 80 per cent of the food reserves have been wiped out.
In recent years, Pakistan’s agricultural growth has been stagnant. In renewed circumstances, and with the number of districts inundated, the sector could potentially contract by three to four per cent. With agriculture and livestock contributing 21 per cent to the national economy this could translate to 0.7 per cent being knocked off from the already low 4.5 per cent targeted GDP growth rate this year.
Losses, however, are not likely to remain confined to the crop and livestock sector but may extend to the value-added agro-processing sector like cotton ginning, rice milling and milk processing and also affect derived demand for seed, fertilisers and pesticide. This consequent ripple effect may chip off another half to three quarters of a percentage point from the GDP or approximately $1bn in absolute terms. The resulting supply side contraction has in fact already started to fuel inflation at a precarious time when Pakistan is struggling to stimulate economic growth.
Losses to infrastructure could translate to tens of billions of rupees in lost productivity and reconstruction costs. Finally the costs of relief operations and subsequent resettlement would also have to be borne by the exchequer. Together these costs will further balloon the fiscal deficit. With Islamabad already struggling, this consequence would make the chances of meeting the conditionalities appear even more remote as it meets the IMF’s board in Washington to convince it to release the next two tranches of $ 1.3bn each.
All this while, the threat from faith-based terror and insurgent groups continues to loom as they evolve tactics and open new fronts in a war being fought for control of the state. The newest of these would be on the charity front, where in pursuit of a hidden agenda, a stray ideology will seek to undertake fundraising and relief operations and exploit the state’s failing.
There may be temptations to channel the assistance already in the pipeline towards the flood emergency. While expedient, this course would detract from this aid’s original objectives, which have been well thought out. De-prioritising these earlier objectives would therefore be unwise. Instead, this is the time for our friends to step forward to help a country — a member of the international community — that has been the largest contributor of troops to UN peacekeeping missions around the world. A new multibillion dollar assistance package would need to target three urgent needs: one, relief operations through genuine charities and state organs; two, aid to farmers through innovative microfinance to restore their economic bases; and three, support for the Public Sector Development Programme and other programmes for the reconstruction of damaged infrastructure.
Of course there are three major challenges with mobilising such large-scale assistance. First, where will the money come from amidst a tight global financial environment? Second, how long will the process of allocation and subsequent disbursement take? Third, is there demonstrable and credible capacity available with the federal and provincial governments to effectively utilise these funds for the purposes and within the time frame intended? Each challenge can take months to address.
On the other hand, if the assistance does not materialise soon, then nearly half of the expected 4.5 per cent GDP growth — of a struggling economy — is under threat of being lost and Pakistan faces the spectre of a descent into a deeper economic quagmire.
Within months of Cyclone Bhola, an ideology — Bengali nationalism — feeding off economic deprivation and post disaster hopelessness took half the country away. This time, a renegade religious ideology — feeding off the consequences of the present disaster — is drooling to take away the remainder. This must not be allowed to happen.
Copyright © 2010 – Dawn Media Group
What we require in this hour of need is complete transparency in the utilization of funds by the civilian administrative authorities. Fund accounts for this purpose must be made available to the donors for scrutiny. Such transparency could be achieved through the availability of data to be subjected to external auditing. Above all, without political will and good governance and efficient management of crisis we cannot come out of it in many months or even years.