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OCHA Pakistan, Serena Business Complex, Sector G-5, Islamabad, Pakistan Tel +92 (51) 2600254-5 www.pakresponse.info

I. SITUATION OVERVIEW

Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under‐Secretary‐General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos completed a three‐day mission to Pakistan on 5 December. The visit provided an opportunity to gain a first‐hand impression of progress made in the 10 weeks since her previous visit, and to emphasize the continued commitment of the humanitarian community to the people of Pakistan. Ms Amos’s key message was that while a lot has been achieved, much more remains to be done. She stressed that “the world must not close its eyes to the needs of the Pakistani people.” She thanked the donor community for its generous contributions in the four months since the monsoon floods began, but called for more support as the response in most parts of the country continues to move into the critical early recovery phase. The first day of Ms Amos’s visit was spent in Sindh, where she met flood‐affected people and discussed recovery and relief efforts in Jamshoro district. Latest figures from an exercise profiling previously‐identified camps in Sindh indicates that the population of these camps has fallen to 134,000 (from over 1 million). The reduction is significant, though the figures do not include newly‐established settlements, including secondary displacement sites in return areas, and further surveys are needed to establish the overall number of displaced persons in the province. Outside the camps, huge numbers of people in Sindh continue to depend on relief assistance, including families stranded in their areas of origin and persons who have returned to destroyed homes and villages.

In addition to flood‐affected areas, Ms Amos visited Jalozai Camp in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (KPK) Nowshera district, which still hosts almost 97,000 conflict‐displaced persons, mainly from Bajaur agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The Pakistan Humanitarian Response Plan, launched in early 2010 to ensure a coordinated response to the needs of conflict‐affected persons in KPK and FATA, extends until the end of this month. Discussions with the Government and donors are underway on how best to ensure that residual needs, including those of both IDPs and returnees, are adequately covered in 2011. Elsewhere in the north‐west, conflict‐affected IDPs have begun to return to FATA’s Orakzai and South Waziristan agencies and are being provided with a range of support at departure points. However, many more IDPs from these and other conflict‐affected areas will be unable to return before winter sets in. The onset of winter is also a key concern for flood‐affected persons in the far north of the country and efforts to pre‐position food, shelter materials, medicines and other basic necessities before snow blocks road access continue. In Punjab efforts to scale up shelter support for returned persons continue to be a priority, with many families without access to construction materials to rebuild their homes. Further returns have been reported from Balochistan as road access continues to improve, though latest estimates indicate that over 30,000 people remain in camps in the province, mainly in Jaffarabad and Nasirabad districts. Without scaled‐up support for returns people may remain in these camps well into next year.

Issue 9 ∙ 9 December 2010

“This disaster is far from over” – an aerial photograph of a village in Sindh surrounded by floodwater taken during the Emergency Relief

Coordinator’s visit to Pakistan last week. Photo: Rizwan/AFP

Emergency Relief Coordinator Valerie Amos meets with IDPs and partners in KPK’s Jalozai Camp, which continues to host almost 97,000

people displaced by conflict in FATA. Photo: Rizwan/AFP

Pakistan Humanitarian Bulletin


9 December / Issue 9

II. CLUSTER RESPONSE

Agriculture The cluster has now provided 455,000 households with seeds and fertilizer for the rabi season, including 87,000 households reached in KPK and Punjab since last week. Distribution to an additional 50,000 households in Balochistan is now underway and will be completed next week. Once completed, the cluster will commence distribution of animal feed to 260,000 flood‐affected livestock owners. The ability of the cluster to scale up its activities in Sindh continues to be constrained by funding shortfalls. Planning of cash‐for‐work programmes to support rehabilitation of over 1,000 water courses continues, with work due to begin later this month to ensure that targeted systems are up and running in time for the dry season in March/April.

Camp Coordination and Camp Management Sindh continues to be the major focus of the cluster’s activities. The trend of return from camps in the province continues: latest information from an exercise profiling previously identified camps in Sindh indicates that indicates that the population of these camps has fallen to 134,000 (from just over 1 million). The reduction is significant, though the figures do not include newly‐established settlements, including secondary displacement sites in return areas, and further surveys will be needed to establish the overall numbers currently displaced persons in the province. Cluster members are undertaking regular visits to return areas in Sindh, both to monitor conditions and identify the needs of returning populations. Given the significant damage to houses in the province, development of additional camps or camp‐like structures around some of the worst‐affected villages is being planned, as a means of ensuring that basic facilities are in place as communities rebuild their homes. Management of the camps will be handed over to the communities themselves.

Community Restoration As part of broader efforts to prepare for winter in the north of the country, the community restoration cluster is currently supporting construction of winterized shelters in Gilgit‐Baltistan. Shelters are based on traditional designs, thermal efficient, and include living areas, kitchens and bathrooms. It is anticipated that 500 shelters will be completed by the end of this month. A similar project is planned in flood‐affected areas of Swat district in KPK. Underfunding continues to be a major constraint, with just 3 percent of requirements so far covered.

Education The education cluster has now reached over 236,000 children, including almost 25,000 during the past week. Key interventions include:

establishment of 2,685 temporary learning centres,

benefitting over 150,000 children

establishment of 140 adult learning centres,

benefitting 4,420 adults

training of 2,445 teachers on education in

emergencies

repair of 219 schools in Punjab, KPK and Balochistan,

benefitting close to 34,000 children.

Much, however, remains to be done and the cluster has completed province‐level response plans for the coming months. Plans are now being consolidated at the federal level but the necessary scaling up of education interventions will only be possible with injection of significant additional funds.

Food Security The food cluster continues to shift its focus towards food‐for‐work and cash‐for‐work programmes. The ongoing Flood Recovery Assessment will provide a foundation for expanded early recovery interventions. Final results will be presented to the humanitarian community on 16 December and will include information on livelihood, health and education indicators, as well as food insecurity across flood‐affected areas and assistance received so far. Emergency food deliveries continue, with 4.7 million people reached with monthly rations during the current distribution cycle – an increase of 1.7 million since last week. The cluster is urging donors to confirm contributions to prevent a break in the commodity pipeline in January, specifically for wheat (the mainstay of the food basket). The cluster’s funding shortfall currently stands at $237 million. Other challenges include effective tracking of population movements in Sindh and pre‐positioning of food in the north, where the onset of winter is already posing access constraints

Health Acute respiratory infections (ARI) continue to be the leading cause of consultations reported through the cluster’s disease early warning system (DEWS), making up 29 percent of the total consultations between 26 November and 2 December:




The health cluster’s key current priority is scaled up support in snowfall areas of KPK, Pakistan‐Administered Kashmir, Gilgit‐Baltistan and Balochistan. The cluster’s draft early recovery strategy is being finalized and will provide a basis for reactivation of the health care system in areas damaged by the floods, with special emphasis on maximizing access for the returning population to a basic package of quality essential health services. Logistics In KPK, many roads and bridges are still badly damaged. Airlift of food and non‐food items such as winterized tents will be critical in the coming months as winter snow creates further access difficulties. Agencies are asked to share expected airlift requirements in advance of winter ([email protected]). In the south, a number of areas in Sindh’s Jamshoro, Dadu and Jacobabad districts are still not accessible by road. An updated map of road conditions in the province is available on the cluster website, at: http://www.logcluster.org/ops/pak09a/map‐road‐conditions‐sindh‐province/geographicmap_view. The cluster has so far facilitated the airlift of 11,588 metric tons of relief cargo since 5 August, including through the use of the nine UNHAS helicopters that continue to operate in Sindh.

Nutrition To date almost 280,000 children under age 5 have been screened for malnutrition, of which 16,941 have been identified as severely malnourished and admitted to stabilization centres and outpatient therapeutic feeding programmes. A further 30,151 children have been identified as moderately malnourished and admitted to supplementary feeding programmes. Data collection and entry for nutrition surveys in Sindh and Punjab has now been completed. Data collection is ongoing in KPK, while training will begin in Balochistan in late December. Training of local partners continues as a means of building

capacity, while enhanced integration of community‐based management of acute malnutrition (CMAM) remains a priority.

Protection Rapid protection assessments have been completed in KPK, Balochistan and Sindh. Work is ongoing in Punjab, in conjunction with a village profiling exercise. Critical protection concerns identified include inequitable access to assistance by the most vulnerable, child labour and child abuse, issues around land and property rights, protection concerns related to NADRA registration and payment of compensation, and gender based violence. The cluster continues to advocate with provincial and federal authorities to address these issues and increase use of complaint and referral mechanisms already in place. In relation to the latter, information campaigns on legal services are underway in Balochistan. In response to continued incidence of gender‐based violence, the GBV sub‐cluster now has full‐time coordinators in place in all five hubs. The coordinators envisage strengthening on‐going activities in the field of referral and communication networks and advocacy and partnerships with local organizations. Response to cases of sexual violence in south Sindh continues to be a challenge due to lack of services and safety measures for survivors ‐ something which is being raised at all levels in order to ensure appropriate action.

Shelter and NFIs With rebuilding underway in many areas, the shelter cluster is emphasizing the need for technical support and provision of the right information to ensure more resilient communities and reduced risk of future disasters. As previously reported, the focus in several districts of Sindh is still on emergency response, and provision of emergency shelter material and non‐food items to returning families continues to be a priority. Items for winter are needed across the country, and particularly in KPK and Gilgit‐Baltistan in the north. In Punjab the shelter cluster is working with OCHA’s ‘Critical Situations Matrix’ to prioritize its interventions, though the lack of capacity and resources in the province continue to pose major challenges. Almost 670,000 households have now received emergency shelter support (43 percent of the estimated need). Coverage in Punjab has improved (57 percent now reached) while coverage in Sindh remains low (35 percent). Distribution of non‐food items to date includes almost 50,000 toolkits and over 1 million blankets. Cluster members have also committed 90,000 early recovery shelters (of which 5,300 have been completed), representing 10 percent of the estimated number of destroyed houses.

ARI cases continue to rise as temperatures drop across the country. Rates relative to other diseases are highest in KPK, but are rising in all

provinces. Source: DEWS




Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Relief interventions including the provision of tankered water continue, but the emphasis in most areas is now on recovery. Coverage continues to be uneven: of the 2.2 million people now benefitting from restored water systems, 76 percent are in KPK. The planned WASH Damage Needs Assessment has been delayed but is due to begin in Punjab next week. The cluster is working with partners to ensure more comprehensive reporting of

interventions in the field. The National Disaster Management Authority has developed a draft “Early Recovery and Reconstruction Strategy on Water, Sanitation and Hygiene in Flood Affected Areas of Pakistan.” The plan is currently under discussion within the cluster. Funding shortfalls continue to limit the ability of the cluster to scale up its early recovery support as required – so far just 29 percent of overall requirements have been covered.

III. FUNDING

Latest levels of funding of the Pakistan Floods Emergency Response Plan are as follows:

Regularly updated information on humanitarian funding for Pakistan is available on OCHA’s Financial Tracking Service, at: http://fts.unocha.org/pageloader.aspx?page=emerg‐emergencyDetails&emergID=15913

CONTACT INFORMATION

OCHA, New York Severine Rey ∙ Desk Officer ∙ [email protected] +1 917 367 5336

OCHA, Geneva Yasmine Rockenfeller ∙ Desk Officer ∙ [email protected] +41 79 217 3041

OCHA, Islamabad Manuel Bessler ∙ Head of Office ∙ [email protected] Stacey Winston ∙ Public Information ∙ [email protected] +92 300 850 2690 Shane Doherty ∙ Reporting ∙ [email protected] +92 300 850 2653

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