Providing emergency relief to conflict and flood affected populations and tackling food insecurity

Since the first days of our involvement in Pakistan, including our 2001-2002 Peshawar-based assistance programme which provided support to 20,000 displaced Afghan families and in the 2005 earthquake response, where ACTED played a major role by assisting over 10,000 families with emergency shelters, food, and access to clean water and sanitation in remote areas of the Kaghan Valley, ACTED has always combined a strong emergency response capacity to address the regular humanitarian disasters that affect the country – be they related to conflict or natural disaster, and a steady focus towards development for Pakistan.

In July 2010, populations were confronted with the worst flooding the country has ever faced. In a country already struggling with the enduring challenges of conflict and food insecurity, the unprecedented floods that swept through Pakistan and affected 20 million people, presented the population with immense challenges to overcome. ACTED and its partners have been working throughout the year to support communities in Pakistan as they have struggled to overcome this latest disaster and the chronic issues of escaping conflict and achieving food security.

Read the "Pakistan - One year on" report that summarizes ACTED's actions in the year that followed the floodings, with some insight into the future

Continuing relief efforts to support conflict-affected and food insecure communities

As 2010 started, ACTED continued to provide support to thousands of people affected by conflict and facing the daunting challenge of rising food prices. Around half of Pakistan’s population struggled against food insecurity at the beginning of 2010. In response to this situation, ACTED, with the support of FAO and WFP, supported 295,960 Pakistanis by providing bags of seeds and fertilizers to farmers so that they and their families could achieve greater food security. Rising food prices was just one of the central difficulties facing Pakistanis at the beginning of the year. Conflict continued to beset communities in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province with fighting between the Pakistan army and the Taliban, leading to the destruction of homes and the displacement of many communities. In KPK and nearby Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), a total of 3.2 million people were internally displaced at the beginning of the year. This situation, coupled with the continued displacement of Afghan refugees, required urgent humanitarian action. In response to this emergency, ACTED staff in KPK distributed 359 shelter kits and provided emergency shelters for 2,938 households. ACTED also put an important stress on rehabilitating damaged water supply infrastructure and sensitizing local populations to the importance of hygiene issues with hygiene promotion training and distribution of hygiene kits.

Responding to the immediate needs of flood-affected communities

The number of displaced people in Pakistan was to rise exponentially when a further 7 million people were forced to move from their homes by the devastation created when unprecedented flooding struck Pakistan in July. ACTED worked to provide essential shelter solutions for people who were left homeless. 21,083 households benefitted from emergency shelters, while 488 transitional shelters were constructed which provided greater temporary protection in addition to a latrine for the family. ACTED also provided essential water, sanitation and hygiene support in the form of vector control through debris removal, latrine construction benefiting 21,410 people and the rehabilitation or installation of 618 water systems. The contamination and standing water created by flooding provided opportunities for disease to thrive, therefore promotion of good hygiene practice among the affected population was essential to stop the spread. During the response to the floods ACTED distributed 5,788 hygiene kits. 23,269 households also benefitted from promotion of essential hygiene messages through door-to-door visits, group sessions in the community and educational events at schools. Food scarcity was an issue for many households affected by the floods too. In the relief period ACTED worked with WFP to provide 6,328 metric tons of food to 45,225 vulnerable households which helped compensate for the huge loss of stored food, waterlogged standing crops and reduced access to markets induced by the floods.
During this period, ACTED also strengthened its approach to partnerships, in order to maximise the impact of our intervention. As such, ACTED, together with the other members of the Alliance2015 involved in the response, came together to implement a multi-sector response across wide geographical areas. While the increased coordination among actors proved challenging in the first steps, this partnership allowed for a better response in ways a single agency could not.

Mobilising for early recovery

Following the first phase of the emergency, ACTED’s programming rapidly shifted towards early recovery projects, in the same areas where emergency interventions had been implemented, thus building on with communities to take another step forward and ensure a clear and strong linkage between the emergency phase and the long-term programming. There again, ACTED operated by fostering partnerships with other actors involved. ACTED notably took part in the Pakistan Emergency Food Security Alliance (PEFSA). Together with the emergency response, ACTED contributed to an Emergency Market Mapping and Analysis (EMMA) as well as an Emergency Food Security and Livelihoods Assessment (EFSA), in order to better understand local trends and best support local communities in rebuilding their lives, according to their priorities.

Building with communities after the emergency

The humanitarian response to the 2010 floods in Pakistan was significant. By January 2011, 965,000 emergency shelters had been distributed to households affected by the floods and 17,223 were also completed. Yet in 2011 there is still much to do to support communities recover from the floods, as well as those still facing the grim spectres of conflict and food insecurity. Throughout the next year, ACTED will continue its efforts to assist those vulnerable communities rebuild their lives. Particular attention will be placed on Sindh, where the flood waters finally receded months after the initial disaster, and on the KPK and FATA border where displacement and fighting remain a threat. For those families returning to their homes, ACTED’s focus will be to continue assisting them in their efforts to rebuild their homes. ACTED staff will also support communities in restarting their livelihoods activities and continue to tackle food insecurity by distributing seeds and tools to farmers and providing them with training to strengthen their agricultural practices.

In 2010, communities in Pakistan endured huge disasters with the support of humanitarian organisations. In 2011, ACTED and its partners aim to help those communities to rebuild their lives.

Pakistan - Opérations humanitaires d'ACTED... par ACTED