The worst floods in Pakistan’s history which began more than two and a half months ago have uprooted millions who even before the floods suffer from tremendous hardships. For many, life has come to a standstill as they wait to return to their villages, find jobs or restore livelihood, and live a day without depending on aid.

DERA MURAD JAMALI, NASEERABAD DISTRICT, PAKISTAN: The flooding in Balochistan as elsewhere in Pakistan is likely to change the demography in a big way since a large chunk of internally displaced persons (IDPs) won’t return to their homes in rural areas.

Issued: October 7, 2010, 12:19 a.m.

The proposal of imposition of flood tax is causing rift in coalition partners as urban-Sindh based MQM is opposing it. Earlier the Presidency put forward the suggestion of imposing one time flood tax as an effort to raise funds for the gigantic task of rehabilitation.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Assembly was told on Friday that corruption, nepotism and political affiliation in aid distribution by the provincial government among flood-stricken people is unprecedented.

ZIARIATABAD VILLAGE, DISTRICT SHANGLA, PAKISTAN: Anwer Saeed works in an electronics store to support his forty year old mother, Pashima, and two younger brothers. His father passed away more than ten years ago in a car accident. However, that was not the only loss for the family. The 2005 earthquake brought down the family’s house in Kohistan. The family once again faced great loss as devastating floodwaters washed away the boundary walls, two bedrooms, and kitchen.

SHANGLA, PAKISTAN:  Royan Bibi, a fifty year old woman from Dubair Nala located in Shangla, lost everything when destructive floodwaters washed away her house and thirteen others at the end of July. She now resides with her thirty-five year old daughter, Gulbha, and her family that lives on the opposite of the Hunza River.

The murky floodwaters have slowly been receding in parts of Sindh including Thatta and Badin. Parts of Sindh have been inaccessible for the past eight weeks; local people share that they have yet to visit relatives for Eid. Dr. Ramesh, working for CWS-P/A and PVDP’s mobile health unit in Khairpur says, “People are worrying too much, and this is bringing on more illnesses. A large number of patients have stress-related headaches, and all we can do besides provide medication is to tell them to not worry.”

Issued: September 30, 2010, 7:00 p.m.

Though Pakistan may take years to come out of the consequences of the devastating floods, there has been a sharp decrease in the river flows since last week. The total water flow in the mighty Indus, Kabul, Jehlum and Chenab fell to 135,000 cusecs on Tuesday, a decrease of 11,000 cusecs in a day.

Church World Service-Pakistan/Afghanistan believes it is imperative to assess the full extent to which humanitarian organizations are committed to applying quality and accountability, the challenges they face in its application, and how to move forward in a more collaborative and strategic way on the issue.  In view of this, CWS-P/A hosted a half day round table meeting on September 24, 2010 in Islamabad for selected agencies that are actively involved in shaping the flood emergency response. In order to ensure effectiveness of discussions and future actions, the meeting targeted decision makers at policy level.

DERA MURAD JAMALI, NASEERABAD DISTRICT, PAKISTAN: Rabi Canal in fertile Dera Murad Jamali was split from Pat Feedar Canal in 1990 to irrigate agricultural land in several villages in Dera Murad Jamali. The canal saved standing crops in a miraculous way.

The gushing water hit the embankment of Rabi Canal with great velocity and made cleavages in twenty-five places. As a result, the canal started flowing, and standing crops on one side of the canal were saved. Of course not all crops were saved. Some villages were totally devastated.

CWS-P/A signed an agreement with Lutheran World Relief (LWR) in June 2009 to build the capacity of LWR partner agencies in Sri Lanka on Sphere Project and Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP). CWS-P/A’s role was to provide technical support to LWR including identifying the needs and supporting the quality and accountability activities to meet the identified needs.

Church World Service-Pakistan/Afghanistan identified the need for an enhanced capacity within civil society organizations for designing and carrying out small research initiatives in Pakistan. Due to a lack of internal research capacity, CSOs often rely upon international rather than local experience in order to develop an understanding of important social, economic, and political issues. Pakistan’s higher education institutes offer limited research, but it is often not aligned with CSOs’ interests. Firsthand research offers several benefits to CSOs such as being a means of identifying important issues and measuring the impact of specific actions or policies; however, the most valuable benefit is the ability to support advocacy initiatives.

“Those with money survive as they can go to private hospitals and doctors, but where do we go because we have lost everything?” says Dilshad Sultan, a mother of five children residing in Mohandari in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa where the worst floods in Pakistan’s history began. Church World Service-Pakistan/Afghanistan is providing the most vulnerable families affected by the floods with food, non-food items including shelter materials, and healthcare facilities.

Issued: September 23, 2010, 9:58 p.m.

Though the residual onslaught of the Floods 2010 continues, front pages of main stream media are now filled with political news items of more journalistic importance. It is evident from various news blogs that people have started reconstruction on their own.  Meanwhile, Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani has said losses worth six to seven billion dollars have been recorded from the floods in the country so far. The funding scenario is also far from promising.  Latest developments between September 19, 2010 and September 23, 2010 are:

DERA MURAD JAMALI, NASEERABAD DISTRICT, PAKISTAN: The 4-wheeler crept on the bumpy kutcha (unpaved) road along Pat Feedar Canal that happens to be the lifeline of hundreds of thousands of people residing in Naseerabad District in Balochistan Province. It takes as much as two hours to cover 40 kilometers and reach Raees Mohammad Khan Waja Village where Church World Service-Pakistan-Afghanistan distributed goods to the families affected by the floods.

Church World Service – Pakistan/Afghanistan through its intervention in flood affected areas of Pakistan has worked to promote strict measures for transparency and quality and accountability. This has been done through its Strengthening Humanitarian Assistance Program (SHA). Various activities have received strong support at the local and national levels.

Issued: September 19, 2010, 6:18 p.m.

The government and the donors on Friday, approved diversion of funds allocated for addressing the root causes of extremism in the war-torn regions to rebuild infrastructure in flood-effected areas of Khyber-Pakhtnunkhawa and the volatile tribal belt.

The first snow fall of the winter season brings more difficulties for the flood hit residents and in Kalam, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhawa it resulted in suspension of copter service for relief activities.

Issued: September 17, 2010, 7:51 p.m.

The United Nations will raise an emergency appeal to support flood-ravaged Pakistan "The UN has initially given its 460 million dollar appeal. That will be augmented later this week," Feldman said, ahead of a meeting on Sunday at the United Nations on the floods.

As many as 800,000 people were under the open skies during the Eid holiday this past weekend. As floodwaters have receded in the northern parts of the country, towns and villages in the southern provinces are still being submerged. The scale of this humanitarian tragedy is far impacting and the larger challenges are yet to begin.