ISLAMABAD: Stressing the need for strengthening structures at the community level to reduce the impact of disasters and effective social protection services delivery, experts said that financing to upgrade and modernise weather forecasting systems and building the capacity of communities can play a crucial role in responding to disasters in future.
This was the crux of a panel discussion, “Adaptive Social Protection: Preparing for Future Disasters”, on the 2nd day of the 25th Sustainable Development Conference (SDC) organised by the Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and jointly held alongside UNESCAP’s 6th South and Southwest Asia High-level Political Forum and Policy Dialogue on SDGs.
Gul Najam Jamy, senior technical advisor of the World Bank, Pakistan, said the local communities have tremendous potential to adapt and respond to emerging challenges. However, the focus needs to be paid to strengthening linkages between the stakeholders and building resilience of the communities through capacity enhancement initiatives.
Anum Zeb, the programme coordinator climate advocacy, Pakistan Red Crescent Society (PRCS), was of the view that currently, Pakistan's seasonal based forecast has an accuracy of 60-75 per cent, which acts as a hurdle in designing Early Action Protocol for Forecast Based Financing. Therefore, he said, we need to invest in our weather forecasting systems. Moreover, systems should be in place for data sharing, risk assessment, particularly area-wise assessment for effective social protection response.
Shazia Maqsood Amjad, executive director Pakistan Centre for Philanthropy, highlighted that the duplication of efforts during the response as social protection needs to be minimised. The various actors such as the government, NGOs, and other organisations should harmonise their response strategy. Working with local organisations could play a crucial role here because of their familiarity with local issues, and the trust that communities pose in them, she added.
Arif Goheer, Global Change Impact Study Centre, was of the view that the state of preparedness in Pakistan in the face of natural disasters is quite low. Likewise, Pakistan does not have up to the mark information and data capacities in terms of ASP and thus, it hinders the proper assessment of the impacts of a disaster on diverse groups of the population.
The panelists, during the discussion, also asserted that the early warning systems should be linked to social registry to address the key issues pertaining to adaptive social protection. Syed Muhammad Mustafa, Social Protection Specialist, Islamabad and Dr Fareeha Armughan, SDPI earlier presented various facts and details regarding the existing state of adaptive social protection in Pakistan.
Tauseef Dilshad Khatana, the CEO of Punjab Social Protection Authority said that despite national socio-economic registry being updated recently, the data sharing strategy is weak. He further said provinces continue to face difficulties in accessing data, particularly in times of disasters due to non-disclosure of agreements.
He termed lack of collaborative governance and absence of local government system as essential flaws in the institutional design, which cause hurdles in adaptation. He called for designing sub-structures with well-defined roles and said jurisdiction is the key to effective social protection.
Shirin Gul, the founding director of Verso Consulting, said that in Pakistan, social protection policies are framed around poverty, however, globally it is risk centric and Pakistan lags behind in this aspect. She said that Covid-19 exposed the inefficiencies of a system built around poverty in reaching vulnerable communities during disasters as these have different impacts on different groups.
She further said that it is time to shift the social protection debate in Pakistan from investing around poverty to lifecycle of risk which serves everyone. She stressed the need for a social protection policy in Pakistan to divert the risk and disaster-oriented approach. She stressed that social protection has to be based on the principle of universalism for resilience, mitigation, and adaptation to succeed.
She added that climate-induced risks will push 35.6 million people to extreme poverty and 100 million in poverty in South Asia till 2030, therefore, the cost of not investing is alarming. She suggested that a forum of climate change, disaster management and social protection practitioners should be formed to suggest well-informed comprehensive policies.
Sajid Imran, director (Rehabilitation), PDMA, KP said that in KP financial responsibility and power to disaster management has been delegated to the district administration to enable them to make effective and swift decisions. Elucidating the participants about the post-disaster efforts, he said that the government of KP released Rs1.84 billion funds to 36 districts and relief efforts included setting up of 130 camps, provision of dry food items and cooked food during floods.
He also highlighted the coordination mechanism between the BISP and DMA, BISP for identifying vulnerable populations based on poverty and disaster risk and various assistance mechanisms designed to provide relief in the KP.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022