Humanitarian Action in Pakistan 2005-2010: Challenges, Principles, and Politics

8/7/2019 Humanitarian Action in Pakistan 2005-2010: Challenges, Principles, and Politics

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Introduction

his paper is part of a series of country studies on humanitarianism and politics, whichalso includes Afghanistan, Somalia, Sudan/Darfur, and Sri Lanka. Tese briengpapers are kept deliberately short in order to generate debate on the policy implications ofrecent crises. Tey will be revised and expanded later for inclusion in an edited volume onthe evolving relationship between humanitarian action and politics.

Over the past ve years, Pakistan has witnessed three major crises aecting up to 18 millionpeople. Te nature and scale of these crises were dierent. wo were disasters caused bynatural hazards: the 2005 earthquake aected 3.5 million people and the 2010 oods

Briefing Paper

Humanitarian Action in Pakistan 20052010:Challenges, Principles, and Politics

By Marion Pchayre1

The Feinstein International Center

develops and promotes operational

and policy responses to protect and

strengthen the lives and livelihoods of

people living in crisis-affected and

marginalized communities. The Center

works globally in partnership with

national and international organizations

to bring about institutional changes that

enhance effective policy reform and

promote best practice.

This report is available online at

c.tufts.edu

Strengthening the humanity and dignity of people in crisis through knowledge and practice

The road from Mehar to Dadu, closed down due to ood-waters, starts to become

passable. As trucks tried to pass on this critical transport road many veered of the

road into the water J. Brooker SOLIDARITS INTERNATIONAL 23/10/2010

January 2011
http://fic.tufts.edu/http://fic.tufts.edu/


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Humanitarian Action in Pakistan 2005-2010: Challenges, Principles, and Politics by Marion Pchayre, Feinstein International Center, Tufts University 2

have aected more than 20 million people. Te 2008-2010Internally Displaced People (IDP) crisis was triggered by aninternal conict and displaced 4.2 million people2 from the KhyberPakhtunkhwa3 (KPK) and Federally Administered ribal Areas(FAA). Facing these dierent and signicant crises in such a shortperiod of time, humanitarian actors had to adapt rapidly and faceddilemmas that were new to them in the context of Pakistan.

Tis paper examines the impact of the three above-mentionedcrises4 on the evolution of the humanitarian system and its abilityto respond to emergencies in Pakistan since 2005. It follows achronological order, looking rst at the legacy of the 2005earthquake response on the humanitarian system, and second atthe inuence it had on its ability to respond to the 20082010 IDPcrisis, and nally it explores the challenges humanitarians had toface at the onset of the ood crisis.

MethodologyTe study relies on interviews and direct observations done inIslamabad, Peshawar (KPK), and Sukkur (Sindh) between August16 and September 3, 2010. Tirty-three interviews were held, eightwith United Nations (UN) agencies, four with donors, ve with

government (federal and provincial), ten with International NGOs,three with local organizations (including the Pakistani RedCrescent Society), one with an international freelance journalist,one with a military aliated structure, and one with theInternational Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Six cluster meetings and one daily National Disaster ManagementAuthority (NDMA) meeting were attended. Tree camps for ood-aected people were visited in Sukkur, where informal discussionswith oodaected people took place. Te context of the researchwas systematically explained to the interviewees. Interviews weresemi-structured with a set of questions prepared specically foreach set of interviewees.


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1. The 2005 Earthquake and the Benetsof Working Closely with the Military

A Very Young Emergency Response Capacity

Until 2005, organized large-scale humanitarian action in Pakistanwas limited to Afghan refugees, who arrived en masse in the 1980sin the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Balochistan. UNagencies, international NGOs, and the Red Cross/CrescentMovement were based in Peshawar and Quetta and have beenassisting Afghans in refugee camps along the border withAfghanistan ever since. Most Pakistani NGOs5 were created in the1980s and the 1990s and were development organizations workingat grass-roots level, mainly on structural, social, economic, andhealth issues.6

Tis is the context in which the 2005 earthquake occurred and,regardless of their previous expertise, organizations working inPakistan mobilized to assist those aected. raditional internationalrelief organizations stepped in alongside local developmentorganizations, beneting from their knowledge of local networksand culture. Te Pakistani civ il society itself played a major role in

the response to the extent that it was considered to be the largestphilanthropic response by Pakistanis that the country [had] everexperienced.7

A Successful Military-led Response

Te government of Pakistans institutions, except for the military,were ill-prepared, and the Pakistani army rapidly took the lead inthe response, creating what was qualied as one of the best examplesof international civil-military cooperation.8 A serving militaryocer, Major General Farooq Ahmad, was appointed as the head ofthe Federal Relief Commission (FRC) in charge of the coordination

of the emergency response. Tree years later, two senior ocialsinvolved in the responseone Pakistani and one UNsummarizedthe ingredients of what they called non-interfering coordination,which included the following key principles:9

1. Share an openand honestassessmentofneedswith the NGO and humanitarian world,includingtheUnitedNations.

2. Allow humanitarian actors to choose what

operations they will undertake, rather thandictateactivities.3. AskNGOstoinformcentralcommandersofthe

choicesmade.4. Central commanders can then identify unmet

gapsinhumanitariandelivery,whichcanthenbe

back-lledwiththeArmyandothergovernmentagencies.

Te article shows how military and humanitarian actors werecomplementary:

Temilitaryhasassets,mobility,means,organisation

andwherewithal,andcanprovidenational,districtandlocalcoordinationinfrastructureforNGOs,civil

societyandinternationalsupporttopluginto.Mostimportantly,theycanworkindistantareas,hard-to-

reachandperhapsinsecureregions.10

And theoretically humanitarian actors have the so know-howon protection of vulnerable groups such as children under ve orwomen and on ensuring equity among dierent communities orrecipient groups.11

The Mera Camp, Swabi district, KPK Matthieu Lacourt SOLIDARITS INTERNATIONAL 05/11/2005


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An Early Pilot of the UN Humanitarian Reform and the Cluster

System

In parallel, the UN decided to pilot the newly-adopted humanitarianreform and its cluster system. Far from clashing with militaryinitiatives, some have even argued that

Ironically,themilitaryfounditeasiertoadapttothenewClustermechanismthandidthehumanitarian

world.12

Te IASC Real ime Evaluation conducted in February 2006recommended improvements to the cluster approach, especially interms of clarifying objectives and responsibilities, but overallassessed the clusters as having successfully provided a single andrecognizable framework for coordination, collaboration, decision-making and practical solutions in a chaotic operationalenvironment.13 UNDP funds were used to set up the Federal ReliefCommission (FRC), which decided to use the clusters platform forthe overall coordination of national relief eorts. As a result,Pakistan is one of the rare cases where national and internationalcoordination set-ups for emergency response coincided.

Legacy for Humanitarian Action in PakistanAmong other points, it is interesting to underline two major legaciesof the earthquake response for humanitarian action in Pakistan.One touches on Pakistani infrastructures and the other on thedynamics between humanitarian actors and the Pakistani military.In the aermath of the earthquake, the Pakistani governmentcreated institutions responsible for disaster preparedness andresponse at national, provincial, and local levels. Te NationalDisaster Management Authority (NDMA) was dened asresponsible for policy-making and coordination at the nationallevel. At the provincial level, Provincial Disaster ManagementAuthorities (PDMAs) were mandated to eectively set up a systemto look aer disasters and calamities whether natural, man-induced,

or accidents.14 PDMAs were to become the backbone of emergencyresponses at the provincial level.

Te earthquake response was considered one of the best everimplemented in the context of a natural hazard of such a scale.Debating whether it was appropriate to cooperate so closely withthe Pakistani armed forces was not considered a priority andeventually humanitarian actors accepted it pragmatically as themost eective solution to urgent needs in rescuing people, settingup extensive camps, and providing the camps with basic medical,water, sanitation, and food assistance. Te 2005 earthquakeresponse could be considered an example of the universality ofhumanitarian action, which overrode terrorism and counter-terrorism concerns. Te idea that Pakistan was one of the mainstaging areas of the Global War On error (GWO) and thatthere was a risk of tensions between political, security, andhumanitarian agendas had simply been set aside, and the successfulcollaboration between humanitarians and the military built a solidlevel of trust between the humanitarian community and themilitary.15

2. 20072008: Early Recovery, anAnesthetic for Humanitarian Actors

Within two years of the disaster, the majority of internationalNGOs that had come to Pakistan for the earthquake responsehad le the country as a natural consequence of the reduction offunds available or in some cases having decided that their mandateno longer applied to remaining needs. Clusters were put on holdstill existing but mostly inactive. NGOs that remained staed theirteams with more development-experienced people and adoptedmore development-like set-ups for covering structural needs withlong-term approaches.

In the meantime, as the Pakistani government had considered thecluster experience to be a success, when the possibility of aOneUNapproach emerged in 2007, they volunteered. Te idea behind theOne UN is to reach more coherent programmes, reducedtransaction costs for governments, and lower overhead costs for theUN system,16 based on four principles: one leader, one budget, oneprogram, and one oce. Tis meant the incorporation of thehumanitarian eorts within the GoPs political agenda. Even

though Pakistani military operations against militants in SouthWaziristan had started as early as 2004, Pakistan was selectedalong with Albania, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Rwanda, anzaniaUruguay, and Vietnam to pilot the delivering as one approachTis positioned Pakistan as a peaceful developing country, whosestate institutions the international community should supporrather than preparing for a political crisis. As a result, when theconict intensied in 20082009, the humanitarian communitywas not well prepared to react swily and appropriatelyand in animpartial manner.

3. 20082010: Deepening Conict and

Humanitarian Dilemmas

What has commonly been called, from 2009 onwards, the IDPcrisis showed that humanitarian action that does notuphold principles of neutrality, impartiality, and independence canjeopardize the primary task of saving lives and alleviating sueringespecially for those who are hard to reach.

Although the Pakistani army operations against militants in SouthWaziristan had started as early as 2004, and triggered signicantdisplacement, the humanitarian community mostly did notinvestigate needs in KPK and the FAA until 2008. Te emergingconict was not attracting much international media attention and

organizations working in Pakistan, including the InternationaCommittee of the Red Cross (ICRC),17 considered those areas nonaccessible.

In 2008, aer military operations in FAA had displaced more than500,000 people in the region, the humanitarian community startedto intervene. Te ICRC, until then mostly working for Afghanrefugees, extended its programming to protection and assistance toPakistani non-combatants aected by the conict. It opened oces


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in Karachi, Lahore, Mingora (Swat), and in the FAA. Teir budgetgrew from approximately $20 million in 2008 to $100 million in2009 and $130 million in 2010 (before the oods); the number oftheir employees grew from 200 in 2008 to 1,300 in 2010.18 ManyNGOs also scaled up their presence.

Stabilization of SwatWhen the Pakistani military operations intensied and especiallywhen the Swat operation started in April 2009, the humanitarianmachine mobilized again. It was called in by the GoP in whatappears to have been an attempt to nd greater coherence betweenits dierent spheres of intervention, de facto embeddinghumanitarian action in the GoPs stabilization strategy. Tecounter-insurgency operations led by the Pakistani army in theMalakand division in April had triggered more than 2.8 millionIDPs, and in July 2009 the Pakistani military initiated a mass returnof the displaced. By mid-August, the government announced that1.6 million IDPs were back in their areas of origin. Tis was a signalsent to the people of Pakistan that a successful security operation

was underway. In turn, the GoP expected aid actors to come andhelp people reconstruct their lives.

Troughout the crisis, the government of Pakistan called forinternational assistance for the IDPs and then for the returnees.Once again, the response was mostly coordinated by the Pakistanimilitary, and by collaborating with the Pakistani military mostactors consciously or unconsciously accepted the risk that reliefwould not be delivered on the basis of need. Many international

actors relied on local NGOs to implement their programs. Tosewho had experienced the 2005 earthquake applied spontaneouslythe same hand-inhand with the military approach, to the extentthat beneciary lists were sometimes shared with or even providedby the military.

In fact, when the Swat valley IDP crisis started, very few people inthe aid community had practical experience of the challenges opreserving principles of independence, neutrality, and impartialitywhen it came to meeting the actual needs of the aected populationin a conict environment. One of the rst critical assessments onthe topic was published in September 2009 by the HumanitarianPolicy Group at the Overseas Development Institute, which spokeabout a clash of principles,19 arguing that humanitarians [hadnot spoken out against the conduct of hostilities and thepoliticisation of the emergency response and that aid agencies[were] faced with the dilemma of engaging with and supportinggovernment eorts to promote stability or maintaining a principledapproach.

Macro Legal AccessTe issue of access lies at the center of the dilemma humanitarianshad to face. Te GoP has strict control on access to KPK and FAAin general. International NGOs wanting to implement programs inPakistan have to submit an application to the Economic AairsDepartment (EAD) of the Ministry for Finance and EconomicAairs for each project and be granted a No Objection Certicate(NOC). Tis process ocially takes seven days, but in practice can

Hygiene and Non Food Items distribution in the district of Swabi, KPK, after the mass displacement from the Swat Valley and

before the return of people Olivier Baconnet SOLIDARITS INTERNATIONAL 02/07/2009


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one analyst describes as the undocumented surplus-life existingoutside these walls.25 Such fortied aid compounds26 designed tokeep the local world out are intimidating and symbolic of the recenmilitarization of security management in the aid sector that iscounterproductive when it comes to working on local acceptanceand the building of trust as a basis for access to vulnerablepopulations.

Te general perception of external27 humanitarian actors in the

FAA or in KPK was that if at best they were not pursuingintelligence for the Pakistani government, humanitarians at leasconveyed values considered in KPK and FAA as clashing withtraditional systems and values. Local political access was henceclose to nil, except to a certain extent for the ICRC and MdecinsSans Frontires (MSF) in some areas, as described later in thispaper.

Te Impossible Situation of the UN

Te very existence of a UN Special Envoy for Assistance in Pakistanin addition to a Resident Coordinator and a HumanitarianCoordinator, illustrates the ambiguity the UN apparatus isembedded in and the leadership challenges it faces. On the one

hand, UN agencies belong to the OneUNand are therefore expectedto support Pakistani institutions. On the other, the UNhumanitarian reform gave OCHA and the humanitarian countryteam (HC) the responsibility to coordinate the response and indoing so to uphold principles of neutrality and impartiality. UNocials interviewed have described this as a clash between the tworeforms.

raditionally close to the GoP, operational UN agencies were seenas being too close. As a result, at the onset of the conict and untilthe Swat displacement, the UN was blamed for not wanting toconfront the government and acknowledge the scale of theproblem;28 that is, to uphold the humanitarian imperative for IDPs

from FAA/KPK and risk jeopardizing their good relationship withPakistani authorities. Similar criticisms about the UNs behavior ata later stage of the response were formulated as follows:

instead of advocating for a more needs-based

registrationcriteriaorovercomingexclusionerrorsbysupplementing government beneciary lists with

agenciesownlistsofvulnerableindividuals(aswasdone,forexample,bytheICRCandseveralNGOs),mostmembersoftheHCsimplycontinuedtobase

their response on what they knew to be awedregistrationlists.29

A view supported by several of the people interviewed in the courseof this research is that, in 20082009, the UNHCR (United NationsHigh Commissioner for Refugees) and the WFP, by working closelywith the GoP, which was a party to the conict, largely contributedto making negotiations with the GoP very dicult for otherhumanitarian actors willing to operate more independently, forinstance without armed escorts or with expatriate sta on theground. Te power of the Humanitarian Coordinator (HC) tobalance this out was generally rated as very low, be it for personality

take up to several months and can be used to control access topressure NGOs to accept instructions about providing assistance toparticular beneciaries.20 For example, access to areas borderingSouth Waziristan (Dera Ismael Khan and ank) was denied tohumanitarian actors for months at a period when hundreds ofthousands of people were being displaced. When access to DeraIsmael Khan and ank was eventually permitted, it was restrictedto local personnel, thus preventing most organizations fromactivating traditional operational relief mechanisms. Humanitarian

actors developed ad hoc strategies of sub-contracting their responseor sending their key local sta to implement it, in order to reach ina timely manner the 428,000 people who had ed South Waziristan.However, adjusting those strategies in an emergency and in areasagencies were not familiar with was a challenge to principledapproaches. Even when they were aware of principles and theirrationale, Pakistani personnel were under very high pressure fromthe Pakistani mi litary to operate under their umbrella.

In May 2009, the GoP military established a headquarter structuredesignated as Special Support Group (SSG) for IDPs and assigned itthe responsibility for logistics, health, administration, and to assistin registration.21 According to a member of the SSG, its role was to

mediate between the military and humanitarian actors. However,even though the SSG theoretically reports to the PDMA, it ispractically responsible for security clearances to access areas inKPK/FAA, which ultimately gives it the power to refuse access. Asone observer noted,

TePakistaniarmedforcesnotonlydecidewhere,whenandhow to conduct anti-aliban operations,butalsoprimarilythroughthecivilmilitarySpecial

Support Grouplargely dictate the terms of thehumanitarianresponse.22

Local Political Access

Implementing principles has never been an easy task and theconict in Pakistan illustrates how reaching out to militants andobtaining local acceptance has been and sti ll is a major challenge.Pashtuns living in the tribal areas have long been hostile to contactswith the Western world and the evolution of international politicsrelying on the GWO discourse has further eroded their perceptionof Westerners or of Pakistanis supporting the GoP. Moreover,senior ocials like the UN Special Envoy for Assistance makingpublic statements of support to the Pakistani military eort toeradicate terrorism in the FAA, and associating humanitarianactors with a post-crisis peace-building23 agenda have not doneany good to the image of humanitar ian actors in the region. Securityis a growing concern among humanitarian actors and has led themto step up protective measures, to the extent of sending negativesignals to local populations in some instances. Te generalperception among aid workers is that threats are diverse and comingfrom dierent groups whose dynamics are very dicult to grasp.Without being the primary targets, humanitarians were directlytargeted several times since 2008.24 As a result, many agenciesdeveloped protective and deterrent measures. Tis evolution can beobserved in Islamabad as well as in Peshawar, where massive prison-like buildings have mushroomed, separating expatriates from what


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or structural reasons: the HC was sometimes blamed for not beingstrong enough in defending principles30 in HC meetings anddescribed as having his hands tied in front of the heads of agenciesmanaging the largest humanitarian UN budgets in the country.

Reported tensions within the HC reect the lack of unity and thestruggle to make incompatible responsibilities coexist. Several aidworkers referred positively to the role of the UN Oce for theCoordination of Humanitarian Aairs (OCHA) as the main agency

which had invested in issues of access, protection, and impartialityof assistance, through negotiations with authorities at the nationaland provincial level. For example, in February 2010, OCHAmanaged to push the issue of the sharing of beneciary lists ontothe agenda of the Policy and Strategy Committee31 and to havethe committee agree that nominal lists of beneciaries (i.e.,beneciary names) [would] not be shared with the civil or militaryauthorities.32 In order to try and frame the civil militarycoordination in Pakistan, OCHA draed Guidelines and, whilewaiting for the Pakistani military to sign them,33 circulated thedocument in March 2010 within the humanitarian community.Tey also launched a pilot vulnerability assessment of peopleaected by the Swat displacement. Tis eventually became a multi-

agency (NGOs as well as UN agencies) eort to rene the targetingof beneciaries by the humanitarian agencies aer the Swat crisis.Te vulnerability assessment was a successful initiative and, at thetime interviews were conducted, it was to be replicated in all otherdistricts hosting people aected by the conict.

Te issue of access was probably where attempts were the lesssuccessful: OCHA managed to obtain authorizations to sendexpatriates, under armed escort, to monitor assistance in DeraIsmael Khan and ank. Unfortunately, their convoy was stopped atthe border of the district, and the mission aborted.

In conclusion, UN humanitarian agencies were torn between two

internal reforms. Overall, this tension has negatively impacted ontheir ability to fulll their humanitarian mandate to the extent thatsome of the large humanitarian agencies have reportedlycontributed to making negotiations of access with Pakistaniauthorities very dicult. In this context, OCHA has howevermanaged to create opportunities for upholding humanitarianprinciples on a certain number of issues and mainly with Pakistaniauthorities. For security and political issues, it was impossible forOCHA to negotiate access with militant groups, thus adding to theperceptions that the UN was one-sided.

MSF and the ICRC Exceptions

MSF and the ICRC have shown an explicit will not to alignthemselves with the UN and have carefully avoided associationwith the latter. Whilst having dierent mission statements andmandates,34 both MSF and ICRC shared a similar approach in orderto access politically sensitive areas in Pakistan, i.e., districts of KPKand FAA and Balochistan. Tey explicitly and consciously tried toprove their independence and neutrality in order to provideprotection and assistance in an impartial way, that is, on the basis ofneed. Tis could be dened as a principled approach, if there wasa precise protocol. However, there is not one single way of reaching

aected people in an impartial way, and both organizations havebeen doing it in their own ways, building upon their strongorganizational identities.

Te ICRC is mandated by states and funded by them on the basis ofa total independence of the use of these funds in the framework oftheir mandate. Te condence the ICRC has built over the yearswith its own donors in order to operate freely is constantlychallenged and maintained thanks to a proven record and the

recognized quality of their work.

Similarly, MSF insists on its nancial independence and hence inPakistan does not accept funds from any government donor. It usesthis as one of its arguments to prove the consistency of its acts withits intentions when negotiating access in the eld: not beingnanced by any state and therefore minimizing the perception thatMSF is instrumentalized is a necessary condition to prove itsindependence.

In order to be useful, principles need to translate into concreteactions, and this starts with a clear understanding of principles byagency eld sta (national and international). MSF for instance has

a strong policy of brieng its sta on its mission statement and onprinciples of humanitarian action, which they implement even inthe context of an emergency response.35 Another tool MSF uses iscommunication. MSF has developed a communication strategyspecically for Afghanistan and Pakistan, which relies on themessage that MSF is an independent medical humanitarianassociation purposely avoiding the NGO acronym. Accordingto the organization, the reason for not using the term NGO is toavoid confusion with other NGOs that have dierent missionstatements, and to attempt to shape its perception independentlyfrom the rest of the humanitarian community. In a similar way, theICRC has dierentiated itself by, among other things, using a highprole strategy in terms of visibility on the ground. In 2009, the

ICRC was one of the very few organizations that had stickers andags on its vehicles.

Nonetheless, it is important to note that both organizations wouldargue this approach is not sucient to build a trustful relationshipwith a party to a conict. A strong will and the capability tounderstand, discuss, and negotiate with parties to a conict is acrucial element in order to gain access to sensitive areas and operateimpartially. Negotiation entails the search for common interestsand acceptable compromises. One characteristic of this kind oapproach is that it is time- and resource-consuming and thereforenot cost-eective compared to programs embedded in thestabilization strategy of the GoP, for which the local acceptance is inline with and supported by national politics.

For example, it took MSF more than six months to negotiate accesslocally to work in a hospital in Hangu, aer it had received theprovincial authorities green light. MSF requested that the hospitabe weapons-free. Long negotiations resulted in a compromisewhereby local authorities requested that MSF set up strict securitymeasures at the entrance of the hospital (including high walls, sandbags) to ensure peoples safety. For the MSF team, it was urgent to


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start treating patients, but more important in the long term tosecure a weapons-free space; therefore the decision was made toinvest time and resources to secure a real operational space,translating into a better access to patients, better treatments, andgreater trust from the local people.

Neither MSF nor ICRC would claim they have an exclusive recipefor access. A few other organizations have tried to use suchprinciples as a tool for access, but oen with a less systematic

approach and, sometimes, greater gaps between their organizationalrhetoric and institutional decisions.

4. The Humanitarian Crisis in Pakistanafter the 2010 Floods, a Natural Hazardor a Complex Emergency?

he 2010 oods were a giant hit on the Pakistani populationwith whom the Western public did not show a great deal ofsolidarity. Te Pakistani philanthropic agencies, together with themilitary, proved once again their responsiveness. Nevertheless, theinternational humanitarian response was rated as slow, half-

hearted, and mainly backed up by a stabilization rationale.

A Mega Disaster36

Te oods were a progressive and insidious disaster that did notstrike Pakistan in one day but over several weeks starting July 22 inBalochistan. Te oods then hit KPK, which ended up with thehighest gure of casualties, and owed down to Punjab, thePakistan breadbasket. Finally, they reached Sindh, whereevacuations were better organized, saving millions of people.remendous habitat and infrastructure damages could not,however, be avoided. On August 14, the World Bank estimated thatcrops worth one billion dollars had been destroyed, threatening tocut in half the countrys growth.37 Te oods covered an area largerthan England, aecting more than 18 million people, injuring morethan 2,900 and killing 1,985 people.38

Infrastructure destruction gures give a good sense of the long-term consequences of the catastrophe:

morethan5,000milesofroadsandrailwayswerewashed away, along with some 7,000 schools and

more than 400 health facilities. Te oodssubmergedabout17millionacresofPakistansmost

fertile croplands, in a nation where farming is aneconomicmainstay.Tewatershavealsokilledmore

than 200,000 head of livestock, and washed awaylarge quantities of stored commodities that feedmillionsthroughouttheyear.39

In October 2010, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bankassessed Pakistan ood damage at $9.7 billion.40

An Image DecitTe UN launched an appeal on August 11. By mid-August, theappeal was 30% funded and by November 29th, aer revision, theoods emergency response plan was only 49% funded.4

International public opinion was not moved:

One week aer launching its appeal for the HaitiearthquakeinJanuary,theHumanitarianCoalition

inCanadahadraised$3.5million.Now,aweekaer

a similar campaign for the devastating oods inPakistan,thecoalitionhasreceivedonly$200,000inpublicdonations.42

Aer the Haiti earthquake, about 3.1 millionAmericansusingmobilephonesdonated$10eachto

theRedCross,raisingabout$31million.AsimilarcampaigntoraisecontributionsforPakistanproduced

onlyabout$10,000.Teamountoffundingdonatedperpersonaectedbythe2004tsunamiwas$1249.80,

andforthe2010Haitiearthquake,$1087.33.EvenforthePakistanearthquakeof2005,fundingperaected

personwas$388.33.Tusfar,[19August]forthose

aectedbythe2010oods,itis$16.36perperson.43

Within the rst month of the catastrophe, the media highlightedthe tepid solidarity with which Western public opinion reacted tothe distress of millions of Pakistanis. Many explanations wereoered. From a pure communication perspective, the oodshappened at the wrong time; there was public opinion fatigueaer a tremendous mobilization for victims of the Januaryearthquake in Haiti. Te West was on holiday, less inclined to payattention to bad news. Another explanation was that WikiLeakshad recently released documents illustrating the ambiguous role oPakistan in the Afghan war. Finally, Pakistan was the wrongcountry: a Muslim country famous for its high corruption rate and

as a nuclear power was not perceived as needing charity. And oodswere the wrong disaster: they happened very progressively, thereforeless spectacularly than an earthquake or a tsunami; and whilst217,300 people died in the Haitian earthquake, the oods tookonly 1,985 lives.

Whatever the reasons, it is certainly true that the Westerninternational reaction was far less important than for the 2009Haiti earthquake or 2004 tsunami. However, it cannot be statedthat this was the only cause of all the troubles concerning the oodresponse.


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A Slow International ResponseWhereas assistance in northern districts of Pakistan was deployed

in a responsive manner,44

most of the international humanitarianagencies struggled to bring their relief systems up to speed inPunjab, Sindh, and Balochistan. In the rst weeks following thebeginning of the oods, humanitarian organizations redirectedtheir KPK/FAA programs towards an emergency response topeople aected by the oods. A strong military presence in KPKalso contributed to a rapid emergency response. Coordinationbetween Pakistani civilian and military authorities and thehumanitarian system was facilitated through an up-and-runningcluster system in Peshawar headed by UN agencies and co-chairedby PDMA agents.

Central to the response was the issue of access. Millions of people

were isolated on strips of land, unable to move to assistance pointsand very dicult to reach. Te humanitarian response wasespecially slow in Sindh, Punjab, and Balochistan for two mainreasons: access to certain areas was logistically impossible and mosthumanitarian organizations had no presence in Punjab and Sindhbefore the oods. In mid-August, the GoP issued an NOC waiverfor certain parts of KPK to facilitate access and speed up theinternational response; however, the most sensitive districts ofFAA and KPK remained practically no-go areas for security

reasons. Access for expatriates to Dera Ismael Khan and ankcontinued to be blocked while the response needed to be swily

scaled up and some INGOs emergency surge protocols required thepresence of expatriates. Similarly, the GoP did not authorize theUnited Nations Humanitarian Air Services (UNHAS) to deployhelicopters in KPK/FAA, where the use of Pakistani aircra byhumanitarians was the most problematic in terms of the perceptionsof the local population.

In terms of institutional funding for international humanitarianorganizations, the bulk of emergency funds started to be availablebetween the middle and end of August, i.e., almost a month aerthe start of the oods.

For the rst time in Pakistan, the UN used the Emergency Response

Fund (ERF) mechanism. Te ERF was designed to ensureaccessibility to funds within 24 to 72 hours.45 However, when it wasactivated, it was overwhelmed by 72 projects46 and failed to respondswily. By August 17, 32 proposals had been returned to theorganizations with additional requests (mainly missing documents)Only eight proposals were approved, and two rejected: NGOs hadnot been precise enough in submitting their applications, OCHAdid not have enough personnel to process the proposals, and the validation process described in the ERF guidelines seemed to

Living on the edge of the ood-waters, many families did not have the opportunity or did not want to go into camps, concerned

about being far from their water-submerged homes or not having transport available to get to camps Jonathan Brooker in Bubeck

Sindh SOLIDARITS INTERNATIONAL 10/10/10


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actions of such groups would spread support for Islamist militantsTere is so far no solid proof for such an argument.

Still, this rationale was used on many occasions to sensitize theWestern public to the importance of donating to Pakistan:

Unlessweactdecisively,largepartsofood-strickenPakistanwillbetakenoverbythealiban,55

writes Ahmed Rashid in the elegraph. Tis line of argumenbecame so pervasive that, even when trying to advocate for thedepoliticization of humanitarian aid, the director of ChurchWorld Services used the same underlying argument of stabilizationstrategies:

If the international community does not come upwithsupportatthistimeofneed,theood-survivors

childrenwillgoindrovestothemadrassasbecausetheyhavefoodthere.Ifyoudontsendaidtowherethe

needis,peoplewillbemorevulnerabletothemilitantorganisations that believe in violence. Tey have

nothingle,sowewillbepushingthemintothearms

of thesemilitantgroupswhosehumanitarianwingsareprovidinghelp.56

As mentioned earlier in this paper, the intention to stabilize hasbeen an underlying rationale for the overall international aidstrategy in Pakistan at least since 2008. Te oods have not escapedthat logic and along these lines Richard C. Holbrooke, the USadministrations special representative for Afghanistan andPakistan, said:

Ifwedotherightthing,itwillbegoodnotonlyforthe

peoplewhoseliveswesavebutfortheU.S.imageinPakistanTepeopleofPakistanwillseethatwhen

thecrisishits,itsnottheChinese.ItsnottheIranians.Itsnotothercountries.ItsnottheE.U.ItstheU.S.thatalwaysleads.57

Certainly this logic attracted substantial resources for the responseand the US was the swiest to react aer the start of the oods andeventually contributed approximately $630 million. Tey are by farthe largest donor, with 33% of the tota l of donations recorded by theUN Financial racking Service.58 However, it is not so clear whethethe Islamist Straw Man has helped to mobilize public opinion orjust further reinforced prejudices against Pakistanis.

Humanitarian Dilemmas

Never before 2008 had the US invested so much in foreign assistancein Pakistan during a civilian rule. For the rst time, this wasintended not to buy Pakistans support for US foreign policy but tohelp stabilize Pakistan itself.59 With such a backdrop, can oneconsider the 2010 massive oods in isolation as a solely naturahumanitarian crisis?

As more than 74% of the funds allocated for the oods come fromcountries involved in the war in Afghanistan,60 there is a high leve

involve too many hierarchical layers. During a NDMA meeting,47General Nadeem, head of the NDMA, kindly but rmly askedOCHA to simplify the bureaucracy and try and have 25% of theproposals approved within the next 72 hours.

Criticism also focused on the types of costs covered by the ERF.Tey did not cover expatriate costs at a time when all INGOs weretrying to scale up and therefore hire more personnel (includingmore expatriates with an expertise in rapid responses). While

classic emergency funding schemes cover sometimes up to 40% ofsupport costs (logistics, administrative, and sta costs), in additionto 7% of the total budget allocated to head oce costs, the ERFcovered a maximum of 7% including all the above mentioned, andexcluding expatriate costs.

Additionally, the whole humanitarian system was stretched interms of human resources. Organizations had to second peoplefrom other countries for short periods of time, increasing theturnover rate, entailing discontinuity in the management ofprograms and loss of knowledge in the history of interventions. Tecluster system expanded to new areas: UN humanitarian hubswere set up in Sindh and Punjab. At the beginning of September, at

the time of our visit, the whole machine was being built but was notyet up and running. Te Pakistan Humanitarian Forum (PHF),which a group of INGOs had formed in 2005 in order to strengthenINGO coordination, networking, and advocacy within Pakistansurely helped NGOs networking in Islamabad, and issued pressstatements on the low level of funding compared to actual needssince 2009. However, it did not exploit its potential for serving as ahumanitarian advocacy platform similar to the ACBAR (AgencyCoordinating Body for Afghan Relief)48 model in Afghanistan. InAugust, it was decided to create a dedicated PHF Manager position,as well as a structure called PAKSAFE, hosted by the PHF anddedicated to Security Information Management similar to ANSO(Afghanistan NGO Safety Oce). Tese steps show how the system

attempted to adjust and become more sophisticated in the face ofsuccessive crises and an increasingly complex environment.

Army Zindabad!49 and the Underlying Stabilization50 Strategy

Even though the Pakistani government has been extensively blamedfor being too slow in responding to the catastrophe, it is worthnoting that its military institutions were at the fore of the response:60,000 army troops were employed in Rescue and Relief Operations,and as of August 27, they had rescued 800,000 people and set upover 100 Army Relief Camps across the country.51 As one of themain actors on the ground in the South, the Pakistani military tookpart in UN coordination platforms. NAO52 and other internationalmilitary forces provided resources as well as logistics support to thePakistani government.

Similarly to the 2005 earthquake response, local organizationsrelated to Islamist groups and political parties53 proved theirreactivity and proximity to local communities. Although thereshould not be anything surprising about Islamic organizationsworking at the grassroots level in a Muslim country, once again,this phenomenon raised concerns in the media 54 as to whether


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5. Conclusions

he humanitarian system as we know it today in Pakistan wasborn with the 2005 earthquake response. Tis humanitarianintervention was an example of a successful joint humanitarianmilitary intervention, which set the conditions for the response tothe subsequent major crises, starting in 2008. Te displacementcrisis in KPK/FAA was the consequence of a counter-insurgencystrategy. Te fact that the humanitarian system had diculties

emancipating itself from the previous response set-up triggeredsevere breaches of principles of humanitarian action, and, as aconsequence, some conict-aected people were deprived of basicassistance. When the oods started to strike Pakistan in July 2010the system had not yet adjusted according to recent lessons learntand had to face a double-faced crisis of an unprecedented scale. Inthis context, the following set of conclusions on the humanitarianarchitecture and on operational approaches are drawn from thisanalysis.

On the humanitarian architecture:

a. Te latest Real-ime Evaluation of the IDP crisis response

commissioned by the Inter-Agency Standing Committeementioned that

Someofthesameproblemswithclustersidentiedinthe response to the 2005 earthquakeand the 2007oodsinPakistanwereagainevidentinthiscrisis.65

Te reason why this paper does not engage more withstrengths and weaknesses of clusters in the last two crises isthat these issues have already been covered by other reports. 6

Additionally, as long as the dierent UN agencies will noreport to the Humanitarian Coordinator but essentially totheir own headquarters, any recommendation on improving

the UN humanitarian leadership and all that follows wil l falon deaf ears. While personalities may well be important, theissue is essentially structural: unless there is a solidcommitment to principles from the headquarters of UNagencies and from donorsincluding an HC empowered toensure that humanitarian action is protected as much aspossible from subordination to political and/or developmentagendassubstantive change wil l remain elusive.67

b. In reference to the funds channelled by the cluster system, it ialso worth repeating that the global inter-cluster mission ledin July 2009 underlined that

Itispreferablethatmoneydoesnotpassthroughlead

agencies as current funddisbursementmechanismshave proven to be slow in Pakistan. In addition,

disbursement of project funding through [ClusterLead Agency] has exacerbated tensions amongpartnersandpresentsanavoidableconict-of-interest

dilemma.68

of dependency among international humanitarian actors oninstitutional donors directly or indirectly involved in conict and aregional stabilization strategy.

Te principles of Good Humanitarian Donorship (GHD) supporthumanitarian action that is explicitly neutral and impartial in itsintent;61 however, it is not so much the intent as the perception ofneutrality that is central to impartial humanitarian action. Forexample, when donor governments are perceived as aligned with

one party to the conict, donors can put the neutrality (and thesecurity) of their delivery partners at risk when they insist ondisplaying logos on the assets of programs they fund.62 If donorsencourage the NGOs they fund to publicize the origins of the fundsrather than the life- saving activities they implement, this adds tothe perception of the alignment of aid with political agendas.

Te scale of the oods certainly put an enormous amount ofpressure on actors delivering aid. One had to be pragmatic and asmany people as possible had to be reached. Facing the volume ofneeds and the complexity of the political background, organizationshad to make choices. Concrete questions arose: Is it possible to usemilitary assets and preserve perceptions that humanitarian aid

does not take sides? In the age of the citizen reporter, informationon what agencies do and on the origins of their funds travels fastand is accessible to many who would not have had access to theinner workings of aid agencies in the past. Is it morally acceptableto refuse to use military assets if this means not reaching millionsof people?

Humanitarian actors used Pakistani mil itary assets at the onset ofthe emergency invoking the last resort principle of the guidelineson the use of foreign military and civil defence assets in disasterrelief.63 At least until September 2010, the World Food Programme(WFP) used military assets64 to deliver food in inaccessible areas ofPunjab and Sindh. Te issue was discussed in a Humanitarian

Country eam (HC) meeting and WFP obtained an exceptionalvalidation from the HC on the grounds of last resort until UnitedNations Humanitarian Air Services (UNHAS) would be able totake over.

Te government of Pakistan called for NAO to support it with anair-bridge to transport goods from donating countries. It seemsthere was a vivid internal debate among UN agencies on whether touse the NAO air-bridge, considering the role of NAO in theAfghan conict and the political regional implications. TeHumanitarian Country eam nally ruled out the option of usingthe NAO air-bridge, on the basis that this was not a last resortsituation as there were civilian alternatives available.

ICRC and MSF felt really strongly that they should not use anymilitary asset to deliver assistance, nor any kind of labellingassociating them with donor states or the United Nations, to thepoint they would refuse to be mentioned in the UN public reportingsuch as the Who Does What Where report, in order to preserve asense of control over their image.


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c. As explained, there has been a space for OCHA to advocatevis--vis civi lian and mil itary Pakistani authorities about therespect for principles of humanitarian action. Tis eortshould be maintained without trying to publicly associatehumanitarian NGOs with UN agencies in order for each typeof organization to be able to control its own image.

On operational approaches:

a. o promote respect for humanitarian principles, agencies

need to be sure of their own principles and to ensure that theylive by them,69 as noted in an HPG report in 2000. Tis issueis not new, but Pakistan provides an exacerbated set ofexamples to illustrate the gap between the rhetoric ofprinciples and their practical implementation. Te rhetoric isdoing more harm than good, as it is discrediting principles asa genuine negotiation tool for access. Humanitarian actorsshould refrain from communicating about principles withouthaving a solid intention and plan for using and respectingthem in practice.

b. Te MSF and ICRC experiences in Pakistan show thatprinciples should not be opposed to pragmatism. In

emergencies, organizations sometimes claim pragmatism tojustify their operational choices. Tis pragmatism is mostlyconfused with opportunism. It is considered pragmatic totake any donors money and to use military assets, but it is not

considered pragmatic to build a relationship of trust withpeople living in politically-sensitive areas or to refuse toparticipate in the stabilization strategy of one party to theconict. Creating opportunities is as important as being ableto seize them. Humanitarian organizations should reassertthe idea that principles are used as a practical tool fornegotiating access to aected populations and providingprotection and assistance according to needs only. Havingsaid this, principles should not be agged as the magic recipe

that will necessarily open access: the point here is that theyare a useful base for starting negotiation with warring partiesnot that they are sucient guarantee of success.

c. As mentioned in the report concerning neutrality, intentionsdo not matter as much as how they are perceived. Labelsoperational set-ups, project outcomes, and communication ohumanitarian agencies all contribute to their general imageand how the population they assist perceives them. Severaorganizations admitted they did not exactly know how theirbeneciaries perceived them. However, decisions like usinglowprole70 strategies or openly communicating on behalf oforeign donors are based on assumptions of peoplesperceptions, which are not necessarily informed by rigorous

analyses. Studies on perceptions should be conducted morefrequently by organizations to update and adjust theirapproaches according to assessed opinions.

Footnotes

1. Te author wishes to thank al l interviewees for having taken some of their precious time during the oods response to answerquestions and discuss humanitarian issues, Aamir Anjum for facilitating all aspects of the visit in Pakistan and providing his insighton issues discussed in this study, the MSF team for facilitating the visit to Peshawar, Nicki and Tomas for their warm welcome inIslamabad, SOLIDARIS INERNAIONAL for facilitating administrative issues, Oliver Milne and Fabrice Weissman for theirprecious comments, and Antonio Donini without whom this paper would simply not exist.

2. International Crisis Group, Pakistan: Te Worsening IDP Crisis (Asia Brieng, ICG, Islamabad and Brussels, September 16, 2010)

3. Formerly called North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

4. Te time frame considered starts in 2005, and the crises considered are those that have aected more than two mill ion people, thusexcluding the ash oods triggered by the 2007 cyclone Yemyin, the 2008 Balochistan earthquake, the 2009 Karachi oods, and the2010 Hunza Lake landslide. Te 2008 food crisis that aected Pakistan as well as many other countries has not been included becauseof its limited impact on humanitarian action in Pakistan.

5. A few of the largest ones being Lasoona (http://www.lasoona.org/), Spado (http://www.spado.org.pk/about.htm#Goal), Poda(http://www.poda.org.pk/About%20Us.html), and RSPN (http://www.rspn.org/about_us/introduction.html).

6. Te Edhi Foundation appears to be somewhat atypical in its expertise on emergency assistance. Founded in 1951, it provides medicalaid, family planning, and emergency assistance through over 300 centers across the country, in big cities, small towns, and remoterural areas.

7. Andrew Wilder, Humanitarian Agenda 2015Perceptions of the Pakistan Earthquake Response, Feinstein International CenterFebruary 2008, https://wikis.uit.tus.edu/conuence/display/FIC/Humanitarian+Agenda+2015+--+Perceptions+of+the+Pakistan+Earthquake+Response.

8. It included US, British, NAO, and Austral ian military forces working together under Pakistani leadership.

9. Lieutenant General Ahmed Nadeem and Andrew Mc Leod, Non-interfering Coordination: Te Key to Pakistans Successful ReliefEort, LiaisonOnline 4, no. 1 (2008), http://www.coe-dmha.org/liaison/vol_4no_1/Dept05.htm .

10. Ibid.
http://www.lasoona.org/http://www.spado.org.pk/about.htm#Goalhttp://www.poda.org.pk/About%20Us.htmlhttp://www.rspn.org/about_us/introduction.htmlhttps://wikis.uit.tufts.edu/confluence/display/FIC/Humanitarian+Agenda+2015+--+Perceptions+of+the+Pakistan+Earthquake+Responsehttps://wikis.uit.tufts.edu/confluence/display/FIC/Humanitarian+Agenda+2015+--+Perceptions+of+the+Pakistan+Earthquake+Responsehttp://www.coe-dmha.org/liaison/vol_4no_1/Dept05.htmhttp://www.coe-dmha.org/liaison/vol_4no_1/Dept05.htmhttps://wikis.uit.tufts.edu/confluence/display/FIC/Humanitarian+Agenda+2015+--+Perceptions+of+the+Pakistan+Earthquake+Responsehttps://wikis.uit.tufts.edu/confluence/display/FIC/Humanitarian+Agenda+2015+--+Perceptions+of+the+Pakistan+Earthquake+Responsehttp://www.rspn.org/about_us/introduction.htmlhttp://www.poda.org.pk/About%20Us.htmlhttp://www.spado.org.pk/about.htm#Goalhttp://www.lasoona.org/


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11. Ibid.

12. Ibid.

13. Inter-Agency Standing Committee, Real ime Evaluation of the Application of the IASC Cluster Approach in the South AsiaEarthquake (Islamabad, February 2006).

14. http://www.pdma.gov.pk/About_PDMA.php.

15. It is worth noting that even if there have been widespread reports of militant-related organizations being active in the aermath ofthe earthquake, a recent study by ahir Andrabi and Jishnu Das showed that the presence of militant organizations at the villagelevel was extremely limited even in villages close to the fault-lineof all organizations, these had the lowest coverage and even at

their highest point right next to the fault-line, not more than 10 percent of households report receiving assistance from such anorganization. ahir Andrabi and Jishnu Das, In Aid We rust: Hearts and Minds and the Pakistan Earthquake of 2005 (PolicyResearch Working Paper, Te World Bank, October 2010), http://econ.worldbank.org/external/default/main?entityID=000158349_20101005131809&menuPK=64216926&pagePK=64165259&piPK=64165421&theSitePK=469372.

16. http://www.undg.org/?P=7.

17. Authors interview with the head of the ICRC delegation in Pakistan, August 24, 2010.

18. Ibid.

19. HPG, A Clash of Principles? Humanitarian Action and the Search for Stability in Pakistan (HPG Policy Brief, Humanitarian PolicyGroup, Overseas Development Institute, London, September 2009).

20. John Cosgrave, Riccardo Polastro, and Farwa Zafar, Report: Inter-Agency Real-ime Evaluation of the Humanitarian Response toPakistans 2009-2010 Displacement Crisis, DARA, July 2010, 49, http://www.daraint.org/report-inter-agency-real-timeevaluation-of-the-humanitarian-response-to-pakistan%E2%80%99s-2009-2010.

21. Special Support Group for IDPs Formed: DG ISPR, AssociatedPressofPakistan, May 12, 2009, http://www.app.com.pk/en_index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=75847.

22. Michael Young, Te Uses of Adversity: Humanitarian Principles and Reform in the Pakistan Displacement Crisis, HumanitarianExchange, March 2010.

23. Michael Georgy, Aid Must Follow Pakistan Military Gains: U.N. Reuters, April 27, 2010, http://uk.reuters.com/articleidUKRE63Q0HG20100427.

24. On October 5, 2009, the WFP oce in Islamabad was attacked by a suicide bomber, killing ve people. On February 18, 2010, fouraid workers working for Mercy Corps were kidnapped 200 km north of Quetta. One was killed and the three others were released onJuly 15, 2010. On March 10, 2010, seven people working for World Vision were killed in their oce in Mansehra district.

25. Mark Dueld, Risk Management and the Fortied Aid CompoundEveryday Life in Post-Interventionary Society, EuropeanInteragency Security Forum, 2010, http://www.eisf.eu/resources/item.asp?d=3559.

26. Ibid.

27. Tis not only refers to international actors. Any Pakistani NGO, unless very locally rooted, would be perceived as external as welland fall into an associated category of unwanted organization.

28. HPG, A Clash of Principles? 3.

29. Nicki Bennett, Missing Pieces? Assessing the Impact of Humanitarian Reform in Pakistan, Brieng Paper, Oxfam International,October 1, 2009, 13, http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/conict_disasters/missing-pieces-humanitarian-pakistan.html

30. Ibid., 12.

31. Te policy and strategy committee is chaired by the Chief Secretary of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa or the Director General of PaRRSA/PDMA, co-chaired by the UN Humanitarian Coordinator and attended by representatives of the Special Support Group, PDMA/

PaRRSA, FDMA, and the humanitarian community (WFP, UNHCR, ICRC, OCHA, and Pakistan Humanitarian Forum).32. Action Points of the Policy and Strategy Meeting held on June 23, 2010 at the Civil Secretariat, Peshawar.

33. In September 2010, the military still had not signed them.

34. MSF charter: http://www.msf.org.uk/about_charter.aspx; ICRC mission statement and mandate: http://www.icrc.org/eng/whowe-are/mandate/overview-icrc-mandate-mission.htm.

35. Even when MSF opened a base in Sukkur, Sindh to respond to the ood-aected people, it dedicated a day of brieng for any newrecruited sta on MSF mission statement, practices, and principles.
http://www.pdma.gov.pk/About_PDMA.phphttp://econ.worldbank.org/external/default/main?entityID=000158349_20101005131809&menuPK=64216926&pagePK=64165259&piPK=64165421&theSitePK=469372http://econ.worldbank.org/external/default/main?entityID=000158349_20101005131809&menuPK=64216926&pagePK=64165259&piPK=64165421&theSitePK=469372http://www.undg.org/?P=7http://www.daraint.org/report-inter-agency-real-time-evaluation-of-the-humanitarian-response-to-pakistan%E2%80%99s-2009-2010http://www.daraint.org/report-inter-agency-real-time-evaluation-of-the-humanitarian-response-to-pakistan%E2%80%99s-2009-2010http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=75847http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=75847http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE63Q0HG20100427http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE63Q0HG20100427http://www.eisf.eu/resources/item.asp?d=3559http://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/conflict_disasters/missing-pieces-humanitarian-pakistan.htmlhttp://www.msf.org.uk/about_charter.aspxhttp://www.icrc.org/eng/who-we-are/mandate/overview-icrc-mandate-mission.htmhttp://www.icrc.org/eng/who-we-are/mandate/overview-icrc-mandate-mission.htmhttp://www.icrc.org/eng/who-we-are/mandate/overview-icrc-mandate-mission.htmhttp://www.icrc.org/eng/who-we-are/mandate/overview-icrc-mandate-mission.htmhttp://www.msf.org.uk/about_charter.aspxhttp://www.oxfam.org.uk/resources/policy/conflict_disasters/missing-pieces-humanitarian-pakistan.htmlhttp://www.eisf.eu/resources/item.asp?d=3559http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE63Q0HG20100427http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE63Q0HG20100427http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=75847http://www.app.com.pk/en_/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=75847http://www.daraint.org/report-inter-agency-real-time-evaluation-of-the-humanitarian-response-to-pakistan%E2%80%99s-2009-2010http://www.daraint.org/report-inter-agency-real-time-evaluation-of-the-humanitarian-response-to-pakistan%E2%80%99s-2009-2010http://www.undg.org/?P=7http://econ.worldbank.org/external/default/main?entityID=000158349_20101005131809&menuPK=64216926&pagePK=64165259&piPK=64165421&theSitePK=469372http://econ.worldbank.org/external/default/main?entityID=000158349_20101005131809&menuPK=64216926&pagePK=64165259&piPK=64165421&theSitePK=469372http://www.pdma.gov.pk/About_PDMA.php


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36. Ross Mountain, Looking Back, Moving Forward, Applying the Lessons Learnt from the Haiti Earthquake Response, ODI event,October 26, 2010, http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/odi-events/id374907483. Speaking of the Haiti as well as the Pakistanearthquake disasters, Ross Mountain stated that it is and it has been indisputably beyond the eective equipment of the internationacommunity to deal with.

37. David Batty and Saeed Shah, Impact of Pakistan Floods as Bad as 1947 Partition, Says Prime Minister, Guardian.co.uk, IslamabadAugust 14, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/14/pakistan-ooding-disaster-partition-gilani .

38. As a comparison, more than two million people were aected by the earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12, 2010.

39. 2010 Pakistan Floods, TeNewYorkimes, November 16, 2010, http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f

oods/2010_pakistan_oods/index.html .40. ADB and World Bank, ADB-World Bank Assess Pakistan Flood Damage at $9.7 Billion, AsianDevelopmentBankNewsRelease

October 14, 2010, http://www.adb.org/Media/Articles/2010/13363-pakistan-ooding-assesments/default.asp?p=paknews.

41. http://pakresponse.info/Portals/0/Pakistan/PFERP2010/PFERP-graph.jpg.

42. Denoja Kankesan, Pakistans Image Decit Aecting Flood Aid, CBC News edition, August 16, 2010, http://www.cbc.ca/worldstory/2010/08/16/pakistan-ood-aid-shortage.html.

43. Mosharraf Zaidi, Why Doesnt the World Care About Pakistanis? ForeignPolicy, August 19, 2010, http://www.foreignpolicy.comarticles/2010/08/19/why_doesnt_the_world_care_about_pakistanis?page=full .

44. Te fact that there were more casualties in the North can be attributed to other factors, such as the fact that the oods started in theNorth and people had less time to leave or the fact that some had already recently been aected by displacement.

45. Pakistan Emergency Response Fund Revised Guidelines.

46. General Coordination Meeting, Islamabad, August 17, 2010.

47. NDMA nine oclock daily meeting, Islamabad, August 23, 2010.

48. Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, http://www.acbar.org/.

49. Long live the Army in Urdu. Government leaders and politicians come here just for media publicity, just for photographs. Teyhave not given us any help. Army Zindabad (long live the Army). Tey saved my brother from drowning. Tey saved us from thejaws of death, says laborer Kifayat Khan in an article published a little more than two weeks aer the oods had reached the northof Pakistan. Pakistan Military Enhances Image with Flood Relief Eort,Dawn.com, Nowsher, August 18, 2010, http://news.dawncom/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/pakistan-military-enhances-image-with-flood-relief

eort-jd-01.

50. Te denition used by the UK Stabilisation Unit: Stabilisation is the process of establishing peace and security in countries aectedby conict and instability. It is the promotion of peaceful political settlement to produce a legitimate indigenous government, whichcan better serve its people. Stabilisation oen requires external joint military and civilian support to perform some or all of thefollowing tasks: prevent or reduce violence, protect people and key institutions, promote political processes and prepare for longer-term development, http://www.stabilisationunit.gov.uk/index.php/about-us/stabilisation-concept.

51. Pakistan Armys Flood Relief Eorts, InterServicesPublicRelationsPakistan, August 27, 2010, http://www.ispr.gov.pk/frontmain.asp?o=t-real_story&id=16.

52. Jorge Benitez, NAO Responds to Pakistani Request for ReliefAassistance/Atlantic Council, August 9, 2010, http://www.acus.orgnatosource/nato-responds-pakistani-request-relief-assistance.

53. Jamaat-ud-Dawa is a prominent example of an Islamist organization thought to be a front for Lashkar-e-aiba (Le).

54. Zeeshan Haider, Pakistan to Clamp Down on Islamist Militant Charities, ReutersAlertNet, August 20, 2010,http://www.alertnetorg/thenews/newsdesk/SGE67J08P.htm.

55. Ahmed Rashid, Pakistan Floods: An Emergency for the West, elegraph, August 12, 2010, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/newsworldnews/asia/pakistan/7941820/Pakistan-oods-an-emergency-for-the-West.html.

56. http://www.actalliance.org/stories/pakistan-take-the-politics-out-of-humanitarian-aid .

57. Salmon Masood, Neil MacFarquhar, and Tom Shanker, U.S. Oers Aid to Rescue Pakistanis and Reclaim Image,NewYorkimesnytimes.com, August 14, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/world/asia/15pstan.html?ref=2010_pakistan_oods.

58. http://pakresponse.info/Default.aspx?tabid=93.
http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/odi-events/id374907483http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/14/pakistan-flooding-disaster-partition-gilanihttp://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/floods/2010_pakistan_floods/index.htmlhttp://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/floods/2010_pakistan_floods/index.htmlhttp://www.adb.org/Media/Articles/2010/13363-pakistan-flooding-assesments/default.asp?p=paknewshttp://pakresponse.info/Portals/0/Pakistan/PFERP2010/PFERP-graph.jpghttp://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/08/16/pakistan-flood-aid-shortage.htmlhttp://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/08/16/pakistan-flood-aid-shortage.htmlhttp://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/19/why_doesnt_the_world_care_about_pakistanis?page=fullhttp://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/19/why_doesnt_the_world_care_about_pakistanis?page=fullhttp://www.acbar.org/http://news.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/pakistan-military-enhances-image-with-flood-relief-effort-jd-01http://news.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/pakistan-military-enhances-image-with-flood-relief-effort-jd-01http://news.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/pakistan-military-enhances-image-with-flood-relief-effort-jd-01http://www.stabilisationunit.gov.uk/index.php/about-us/stabilisation-concepthttp://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-real_story&id=16http://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-real_story&id=16http://www.acus.org/natosource/nato-responds-pakistani-request-relief-assistancehttp://www.acus.org/natosource/nato-responds-pakistani-request-relief-assistancehttp://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SGE67J08P.htmhttp://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SGE67J08P.htmhttp://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SGE67J08P.htmhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/7941820/Pakistan-floods-an-emergency-for-the-West.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/7941820/Pakistan-floods-an-emergency-for-the-West.htmlhttp://www.actalliance.org/stories/pakistan-take-the-politics-out-of-humanitarian-aidhttp://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/world/asia/15pstan.html?ref=2010_pakistan_floodshttp://pakresponse.info/Default.aspx?tabid=93http://pakresponse.info/Default.aspx?tabid=93http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/world/asia/15pstan.html?ref=2010_pakistan_floodshttp://www.actalliance.org/stories/pakistan-take-the-politics-out-of-humanitarian-aidhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/7941820/Pakistan-floods-an-emergency-for-the-West.htmlhttp://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/7941820/Pakistan-floods-an-emergency-for-the-West.htmlhttp://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SGE67J08P.htmhttp://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SGE67J08P.htmhttp://www.acus.org/natosource/nato-responds-pakistani-request-relief-assistancehttp://www.acus.org/natosource/nato-responds-pakistani-request-relief-assistancehttp://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-real_story&id=16http://www.ispr.gov.pk/front/main.asp?o=t-real_story&id=16http://www.stabilisationunit.gov.uk/index.php/about-us/stabilisation-concepthttp://news.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/pakistan-military-enhances-image-with-flood-relief-effort-jd-01http://news.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/pakistan-military-enhances-image-with-flood-relief-effort-jd-01http://news.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/pakistan/pakistan-military-enhances-image-with-flood-relief-effort-jd-01http://www.acbar.org/http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/19/why_doesnt_the_world_care_about_pakistanis?page=fullhttp://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/08/19/why_doesnt_the_world_care_about_pakistanis?page=fullhttp://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/08/16/pakistan-flood-aid-shortage.htmlhttp://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/08/16/pakistan-flood-aid-shortage.htmlhttp://pakresponse.info/Portals/0/Pakistan/PFERP2010/PFERP-graph.jpghttp://www.adb.org/Media/Articles/2010/13363-pakistan-flooding-assesments/default.asp?p=paknewshttp://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/floods/2010_pakistan_floods/index.htmlhttp://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/f/floods/2010_pakistan_floods/index.htmlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/14/pakistan-flooding-disaster-partition-gilanihttp://itunes.apple.com/podcast/odi-events/id374907483


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59. Andrew Wilder, Aid and Stability in Pakistan: Lessons from the 2005 Earthquake Response, OverseasDevelopmentInstitute 34no. 3, in Disasters special issue on States of Fragility: Stabilisation and its Implications for Humanitarian Action (October 2010)S406-S426.

60. Te calculation is derived from the data in the table B: total humanitarian assistance per donor as of January 12, 2010, http://wwwpakresponse.info/Default.aspx?tabid=93.

61. Sarah Collinson, Samir Elhawary, and Robert Muggah, States of Fragility: Stabilisation and its Implications for HumanitarianAction, OverseasDevelopmentInstitute 34, no. 3, special issue ofDisasters (October 2010): S293.

62. http://www.actalliance.org/stories/pakistan-take-the-politics-out-of-humanitarian-aid .

63. OCHA, Guidelines On: Te Use of Military and Civil Defence Assets In Disaster Relief Oslo Guidelines, November 2006, http:/www.reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900SID/AMMF-6VXJVG?OpenDocument.

64. Both Pakistani- and other government-lent assets.

65. Cosgrave, Polastro, and Zafar, Report: Inter-Agency Real-ime Evaluation.

66. Cosgrave, Polastro, and Zafar, Report: Inter-Agency Real-ime Evaluation; Inter-Agency Standing Committee, Real imeEvaluation; Bennett, Missing Pieces? Assessing the Impact; Andrew Featherstone and Amany Abouzeid, Its the Tought TatCounts, Humanitarian Principles and Practice in Pakistan (ActionAid, June 2010); HPG, A Clash of Principles?

67. Tis issue is dealt with more in detail in Donini, Antonio, Afghanistan: Humanitarianism Unraveled? Brieng Note on AfghanistanFeinstein International Center, May 2010, https://wikis.uit.tus.edu/conuence/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=36675386.

68. OCHA, Inter-Cluster Diagnostic Mission to Pakistan, Islamabad and Peshawar, July 13-17, 2009.

69. Nicholas Leader, Te Politics of Principle: Te Principles of Humanitarian Action in Practice, HPG reports, Overseas DevelopmenInstitute, London, March 2, 2000, http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/details.asp?id=252&title=politics-principles-humanitarian-action-practice.

70. When managing security, organizations can decide to label all their assets, vehicles, and stas in order to be highprole anddistinguish themselves from other actors, or they can decide to be as discreet as possible in order not to attract attention, adoptingtherefore a lowprole strategy.

The sun sets on the ood-waters in Dadu, one of the most heavily affected regions where seemingly endless ood-waters have

been slow to recede and huge numbers of people remain displaced Jonathan Brooker North of Dadu, Sindh SOLIDARITS

INTERNATIONAL 17/12/10
http://www.pakresponse.info/Default.aspx?tabid=93http://www.pakresponse.info/Default.aspx?tabid=93http://www.actalliance.org/stories/pakistan-take-the-politics-out-of-humanitarian-aidhttp://www.reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900SID/AMMF-6VXJVG?OpenDocumenthttp://www.reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900SID/AMMF-6VXJVG?OpenDocumenthttps://wikis.uit.tufts.edu/confluence/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=36675386http://www.odi.org.uk/resources/details.asp?id=252&title=politics-principles-humanitarian-action-practicehttp://www.odi.org.uk/resources/details.asp?id=252&title=politics-principles-humanitarian-action-practicehttp://www.odi.org.uk/resources/details.asp?id=252&title=politics-principles-humanitarian-action-practicehttp://www.odi.org.uk/resources/details.asp?id=252&title=politics-principles-humanitarian-action-practicehttps://wikis.uit.tufts.edu/confluence/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=36675386http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900SID/AMMF-6VXJVG?OpenDocumenthttp://www.reliefweb.int/rw/lib.nsf/db900SID/AMMF-6VXJVG?OpenDocumenthttp://www.actalliance.org/stories/pakistan-take-the-politics-out-of-humanitarian-aidhttp://www.pakresponse.info/Default.aspx?tabid=93http://www.pakresponse.info/Default.aspx?tabid=93


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About the Author

Marion Pchayre has worked for SOLIDARIS INERNAIONAL,a French NGO, for the past ve years in several countries in Asia andAfrica and more recently as the Head Oce Asia Desk Manager,responsible for programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Bangladesh,Myanmar, and Tailand. She holds an MA in Conict, Security, andDevelopment from Kings College London and is a PhD candidate atthe School of Oriental and African Studies in the Department ofDevelopment Studies.

Acronyms

ACBAR Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan ReliefANSO Afghanistan NGO Safety OceEAD Economic Aairs DivisionERF Emergency Response FundFAA Federally Administered ribal AreasFDMA FAA Disaster Management Authority

FRC Federal Relief CommissionGHD Good Humanitarian DonorshipGoP Government of PakistanGWO Global War On errorHC Humanitarian CoordinatorHC Humanitarian Country eamIASC Inter-Agency Standing CommitteeICRC International Committee of the Red CrossIDP Internally Displaced Person(I)NGO (International) Non-Governmental OrganizationKPK Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly North-West Frontier Province)MSF Mdecins Sans FrontiresNAO North Atlantic reaty Organization

NDMA National Disaster Management AuthorityNOC No Objection CerticateNWFP North-West Frontier ProvinceOCHA Oce for the Coordination of Humanitarian AairsPaRRSA Provincial Reconstruction, Rehabilitation and Settlement AuthorityPDMA Provincial Disaster Management AuthorityPHF Pakistan Humanitarian ForumRC Resident CoordinatorSSG Special Support GroupUN United NationsUNDP United Nations Development ProgrammeUNHAS United Nations Humanitarian Air ServicesUNHCR United Nations High Commissioner for RefugeesWFP World Food Programme

Documents

Humanitarian Action in Pakistan 2005-2010: Challenges, Principles, and Politics