William J. Garvelink, Usaid Co-ordinator for Pakistan, on Wednesday evening said the United States has plans to "take a lead" in rendering effective help to the earthquake-hit people "get shelter before the fast approaching winter."
In an interview with APP, the high USAID official said there were three proposals being looked at. One option is to have "one warm room" for the people until the winter is over; second is to seek municipal building-like accommodation so as to accommodate extended families; and thirdly, to effect voucher system to help victims cope up with the situation by tiding over faced with hardships.
The assistant administrator USAID, now in Geneva attending the UN relief pledging conference, was talking to APP over telephone.
Garvelink said the US government was considering provision of shelter for 600,000 people. So far, he said, 112,000 tents had been distributed- both by the government of Pakistan and the international community, and another 200,000 were in the pipeline. The need is high, and the gap figured at 88,000 tents.
The area of shelter, he added, is one of crisis- given the forecast that in the next few weeks, the passes would go up with snow into some village areas and these would be inaccessible for rest of the winter. "We're working with all the other donors, and UN agencies and NGOs to access as many tents as possible."
Elaborating, he said the first step is to see how many of the dwellings or homes have at least one room that is still capable for being lived in, may be the rest of the house is destroyed. This could be done with repair of one room of the partially damaged houses.
In other words, the first step would be to restore existing dwellings, "because, according to all empirical evidence we have in previous emergencies is that people prefer to stay near their homes and their property."
Of the second option, he said is to use facilities like market buildings, private businesses, town or city halls that can be used. The winters are very rough and tenting material may not even be adequate.
"We will encourage people by trying to recruit families that are not extended families but who are willing to take people in, if they are provided some kind of an encouragement, financially."
In respect of introducing voucher scheme, he said that would allow people to take families in, even if they are not related to. This proposal, he said is being discussed with the NGOs and with the donor community, and hoped "it will work."
He said mass employment programmes are to be launched, as soon as clean up operation is launched, and those in good physical condition may get back to work by providing bread earners daily wages. It will allow clearing the rubble away-and, to facilitate the reconstruction process.
Asked how was the response of the donor community at the Geneva conference earlier on Wednesday, the senior USAID official said "it was well-attended," and the donor countries were willing to participate in the task of relief work for the disaster-hit. USAID Chief Andrew Natsios led the US delegation.