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By Sabeena Jalal The impact of 2005 earth quake in Pakistan was visible and hence registered to the nation and the world. However, the full impact of the devastation caused by the 2010 floods of Pakistan is yet to manifest itself. According to estimation 1/5th of the country is under water. Crops are no more. We do not know the correct death toll. We have no valid data. There is a looming threat of epidemics and malnutrition. This threat is just not restricted to the directly afflicted flood victims. It would probably seep through the civil society , lets say by october - december 2010, When it is estimated that the flood water would recede.
So the question is to prepare ourselves.
Besides damage to people's homes , crops and animals ( mostly agricultural people have been affected), floods have caused extensive damage to roads, bridges and irrigation works. Hence, what would be the long term rehabiliatation cost of this flooding?
Sugar and cotton have been destroyed. Would it affect our textile sector? How much revenue is generated by that sector alone? According to estimates abt 60% exports are through this. Also what would happen to transport costs , food scarcity and inflation?
How to plan a safety net for this calamity?
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Beat Disability-By Embracing It
Equity and Inclusivity
Sabeena Jalal
"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beautyto its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget."- Arundhati Roy
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FLOODS 2010 PAKISTAN RELATED ARTICLE # 2 : "Flood and its effects- 2010 Pakistan"
FLOOD 2010 PAKISTAN RELATED ARTICLE # 1 : Disaster Mitigation - A coordinated effort Model
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By Sabeena Jalal and Shahzad Ali Khan
Disaster Mitigation: A way forwards onto the path of rehabilitation , could perhaps be made around the following model. Biggest emergency on the planet declared by UNICEF - The 2010 floods along the banks of River Indus. Can the country and its people be the same? About 3 weeks post floods :20 million displaced…. “The loss of life, disease, poverty, and human misery themselves are going to take years to overcome. But the costs of desilting, cleaning up, and reconstructing Pakistan's most fertile and potent highways, canals, and waterworks will be exhausting just to calculate. The actual task of building back this critical infrastructure is a challenge of unprecedented proportions.” Foreign Policy august 21,2010. Since mostly the farmers have been affected by the flood – their land, crops and cattle destroyed; both their assets and income generators for Pakistani villagers along the Indus River are no more. Twenty million people are now struggling to find a dry place to sleep, a morsel of food to eat, a sip of clean water to drink -- and the questions we are asking, have to do with politics and international security- and reliability or the lack of it in dealing with funds. Immediate Requirement: FUNDS: donations as money is desperately needed to buy food, medicines , shelter, transportation and supplies and hire local people to assist. Having finances mean they can buy whatever is needed. Coordination between humanitarian relief organizations is important to ensure effective delivery of services and efficient use of scarce resources as emphasized by UN. We have to see whom the people of Pakistan trust most- which governing body in the country is least corrupt: (a) Pakistan Army (b) EDHI ( may not have the time to take up this responsibility as they are working endlessly- man power may be an issue.). In Pakistan army corruption is marginalized. Hence, funds would be most reliably collected and handled by the army. A flood relief account should be set up in the National Bank with branches all over the country. In this case , the national Bank can serve as the Central Bank- State Bank. This would add transparency and accountability.
Reasons for making Army the central coordinating body for collection and utility of funds: 1) Corruption is marginalized 2) Most man power to deal with this colossal calamity 3) Helicopters , boats , planes – all logistic support 4) Hence, money can move faster on ground to reach the afflicted. 5) Currently , funds are threatened by “choors and decoits” - Army can give security to the goods collected. 6) Trained to deal with various terrains 7) Army has a department Signal Corps- this department can help in communication in areas which are too far flung and difficult to reach. This would enable a very effective communication. 8) Army has service corps , engineering batalion ( which can help with reconstruction of roads and bridges) and Military police to check any mishappenings.
Body within army: Would constitute of brigadiers and majors: people with good reputation should be made incharge. Role of NGOs: NGO’s get their funds from foreign agencies. They can work parallel with the Army and Edhi. However coordination is required- they all need to work as partners and share their information. Media: The media giants can set up coordination cells. Coordination cell would have 24 hours coverage by three shifts of operators and a log would be maintained either district wise or for every 10 km radius. Where Army , Edhi and NGOs and hospital - medical camps: all share the information of provision of relief goods and Aid is shared. So that duplication of effort is minimal and maximum population is covered and no one is left out. Media controlled website: A website need to be continuously and vigilantly updated, that would show the utilization of funds and supply of resources and disease outbreaks, nutrition and malnutrition and also the need for the basic items: like clothes, medicines, vaccination, food. And every NGO or philanthropic individual/group efforts , should get an ID number and password to access it and upload their information on the ONE common website. Hospitals holding medical camps should also upload their information about the services provided in various flood affected areas and services still needed. GIS mapping can be used as a tool. Develop a Volunteer Cell: During and after disaster what is deperately needed is equipment, supplies and expertise in disaster situations. They require skills , qualitfications and long term commitment, not just good intentions, there should be a sence of urgency and short term availibility. Volunteer with an orgnization or government ideally, so that the efforts do not become sporadic but are rather coordinated. Boy scout and girl scout, community health workers and Medical University students .... could be very effective.
How to long term rehabilitate: So besides immediate needs , i.e, rescue, tents , food , medicines , what shall we give the flood victims? Money in cash? Not a good idea as they might spend it without having tangibles remaining with them. NGOs already working to supply family packages of food and medicines. Medicines can be bought from pharmacies at subsidized rates by the NGOs or philanthropists and distributed thorugh medical camps. If we are to prioritize for long term rehab between : Food, Clothes- by giving them cash packages; and Shelter: SHELTER is what army should aim at providing them- not temporary one, like in schools or mosques- Army should help build one to two room houses and allocate them based on the family size. Mostly displaced people are farmers: so with the funds donated for the flood victims, buy them animals, fertilizer and seed- depending on how much money is available after shelter provision. This will help the flood victims get settled back into normal life. We have to keep in mind how this huge bulk of population of survive in the long term? It is a matter of addressing urgent needs, immediate needs , short term and long term needs. All this translates into national security.
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Road injuries can be prevented by taking proper precautionary measures - case resource scarce setting.
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source : http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/archive/070422/dmag7.htm (april 2007) Karachi now has a markedly improved road system.(2010). In three years , we have witnessed that addressing and revamping a road system is a possibility in the developing world.
The mirage of development
article by SJ
 Hiding behind the mirage of development we see that Pakistan and Karachi, its biggest city, suffer a lot because of road traffic injuries. How often does it happen that we pick up a newspaper and don’t come across a headline that highlights the dangers of road traffic crashes? Will it be safe to say that a very low rate of investment in RTI’s (road traffic injuries) prevention accompanied by a high burden of RTI morbidity and mortality exists in Pakistan? Public efforts in RTI control are poorly-funded and hence this compares unfavorably with other conditions and with that of more developed nations where government efforts for traffic safety are well funded. Is it really deserving the low priority that it is getting?Deaths from causes that were commonplace in the early 20th century – such as fatalities among workers in factories, mines, railroads and dockyards – are no longer accepted as inevitable today. Nowadays, many societies do not apply death penalty no matter how serious the crime is. A few years ago, about a hundred deaths caused by the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) mobilised international efforts to arrest the disease; and millions of demonstrators came out on the streets in many countries to protest against a war in their belief that nothing justifies the deaths of innocent individuals. So why is this attitude absent when it comes to road traffic? Recent estimates suggest that the RTIs result in one million fatalities worldwide every year. A vast majority of these deaths involve people who are less than 50 years old. Another 20 to 30 million people suffer injuries that need hospitalisation or expert medical treatment.Given the current low level of investment, initial investments in transport safety, if chosen with care, could turn out to be extremely beneficial for public health and welfare. If cost effectiveness analyses of these interventions are able to document these high returns they could help to encourage widespread replication efforts. Evaluating the effectiveness of these initial investments in road safety in the developing countries should become a priority for the research community.Let’s consider the following scenario:According to the traffic engineering bureau, Karachi, between 1994 and 2000 one person was killed every 14 hours, one person injured every 11 hours and one pedestrian died every 25 hours in road accidents in Karachi. The same survey showed that one motorcycle was involved in accident every 41 hours, one motorcyclist was killed every 82 hours, one car was involved in accident every 37 hours, one minibus was involved in accident every 28 hoursWhat are our indigenous problems, besides not following traffic regulations? Let’s consider the obvious problems that are often ignored.Non-homogeneity of traffic exists in Karachi and what is meant by that is, we have at least three or four different kinds of modes at the same time -- which is bicyclists, pedestrians -- two or three different kinds of non-motorised modes -- which is hand-pulled carts -- and within motorised modes we see more busses, trucks on urban streets than you see in the western world and three-wheeled scooter taxis, which you don’t have in the US at all. So, there’s a much wider mix of vehicles and people on the streets in India and Pakistan.When a truck or a bus hits a pedestrian or bicyclist, and if the driver doesn’t run away from the scene of the accident, he gets lynched; and every second day a bus or a truck gets burnt because it has run over a pedestrian. If a child is hit by a bus or truck, it is set on fire by the crowd. This is ample evidence that the people do not take the existence of accidents as something acceptable. What people are saying by indulging in this violence on the streets is that it’s not acceptable. It’s not acceptable to have your kids killed on the street. The second evidence we have is that road bumps are coming all over the place, even on the intercity roads, so that if a child gets killed on an intercity highway -- and these are not limited access highways, these are open highways -- if a child gets killed on a highway in a village, the villagers go to the local politician, force the politician to get the engineer to get a road bump on the highway.Roadside vendors have often been treated as illegal occupants of road space by the authorities. Traffic and transport planners too view their presence as unnecessary and an impediment to the efficient movement of pedestrians and motorised traffic. Every now and then, the city authorities launch a drive to evict or shift them to different locations. All these decisions are taken by officials who don’t use the services of these vendors. Given the heterogeneous structure of our society, the presence of roadside vendors is inevitable. Once we accept the fact that they provide legitimate services needed by road users, it is possible to design spaces for them on the road as an integral part of road development plans. Such designs can ensure efficient movement of vehicles and pedestrians without causing hardship to honest hardworking citizens – the vendors.The rising cost of travelling by public transport within the city and long working hours force workers to live close to their workplaces. A violation of the law thus becomes a pre-condition for their survival. A large number of people living in these units are employed in the informal sector providing various services to the outer areas of the city. However, because of the lack of employment opportunities, people living in these areas have to commute long distances across the city in search of employment. Unlike the traffic in cities of high-income countries, bicycles, pedestrians and other non-motorised modes are present in significant numbers on the arterial roads and intercity highways. Their presence persists despite the fact that engineers designed these highway facilities for the uninterrupted flow of fast moving motorised vehicles.How to solve these situations?According to professors Dinesh Mohan and Geetum Tiwari, the traffic expert from IIT New Delhi, what needs to be understood is that some of the theoretical base of road traffic injury control counter measures may have international applicability, but many of the physical solutions may not. There is clearly a poverty of theory. For example, most road safety measures instituted in high-income countries have centred on automobile and automobile occupant. Road and intersection designs are largely based on cars, buses and truck movements. Motorcycles dominate the roads in less motorised countries like ours; human powered vehicles, pedestrian carrying loads and locally designed vehicles. No traffic flow models and computer programmes are able to account for this mix.So whether you talk about costs or about safety, what is the consumer looking for? Now we have to think what kind of a mass transport system we can provide -- that is flexible and reliable.A well functioning road infrastructure must satisfy the requirements of all road users.Pedestrians, bicyclists and non-motorised rickshaws are the most critical elements in mixed traffic in Indian cities. It is this group of road users that needs the services of vendors the most. If infrastructure design does not meet their requirements then all modes of transport will operate in sub-optimal conditions. An efficient and safe road-traffic system must satisfy two design principles:1) Arterial roads which have more than 30m right of way (ROW) must have physically segregated bicycle/non-motorised vehicle (NMV) paths, which cannot be used by motorised vehicles (especially motorised two-wheelers).2) Average speeds on roads which have less than 30m ROW must be brought to 20-30kms/h with the help of traffic calming measures.For the people who continuously park their car outside their homes, start owning 250sq-ft of government land, as they park outside on the street. This space is more than what the poor man occupies for “squatter settlements”. What is the cost of the 250sq-ft flat in the cheapest locality? Let’s say Rs2,000/month. Hence, every car owner who is using the street to park is getting a subsidy from the government.Internal road safety audit and process:1) Ensure that the safety director/officer has direct access to top management.2) Designate one individual as the responsible person for safety authority for the system.3) Identify the role of the safety director.4) Include a mechanism for ensuring that all employees are accountable for safety.5) Establish and review data bases to assist the continuous monitoring of the systems safety programme. |
