‘Pakistan missing out on donations due to bad brand’
Aid agencies say Pakistan’s perceived links to terrorist groups is undermining their ability to raise funds internationally to tackle a second successive year of devastating floods.
The current emergency, triggered by monsoon rains last month, has killed 430 people and disrupted the lives of nine million in Sindh.
But appeals to foreign governments have largely fallen on deaf ears as a result of accusations Pakistan is sheltering insurgents, aid workers say.
“Within the international community, there are negative perceptions of Pakistan and we believe they are impacting humanitarian fundraising efforts,” said Joe Cropp, communications delegate for the Red Cross movement (IFRC) in Islamabad.
As one diplomat said to us last year, ‘Pakistan is a bad brand’ – Joe Cropp, Red Cross movement
“While we are a neutral and impartial organisation, we are not politically naive. We do engage with diplomats, we do engage with governments and we’ve learnt this from them. As one diplomat said to us last year, ‘Pakistan is a bad brand’.”
Earlier this month, the IFRC and the United Nations launched appeals to raise $12m (£7.6m) and $357m (£228m) respectively for flood victims, but the organisations say less than 3 per cent of amount they need has been received.
Furthermore, it is reported that only $1.30 (83p) has been committed per person by international donors in the first 10 days of the UN appeal as opposed to $3.20 (£2) committed in the same period during last year’s floods.
And although a myrriad of other factors – the global financial slump and competition from other crises such as the East African famine – have contributed, aid agencies particularly blame Pakistan’s image as a haven for Islamist extremists.
Last week, a top US official accused Pakistan’s Inter Service Intelligence (ISS) of supporting the militant Haqqani network’s 13 September attack on the US embassy in Kabul.
Pakistan, which has received billions of dollars of US aid, has been reluctant to pursue the Haqqani group, straining relations with its biggest ally and donor. Ties have been under pressure since the May raid in Pakistan by U.S. Special Forces that killed Osama bin Laden.
“The ongoing situation between Pakistan and the U.S. has cast a shadow over the understanding of the world vis-a-vis Pakistan,” said Mubashir Akram, Oxfam’s communications manager in Islamabad.
“I would like to appeal to the world to separate humanitarian issues from political and geo-strategic issues. Pakistan is a country of 180 million people. Not every one of them is a militant.”
According to the latest figures, more than 8.8 million people in Sindh and 14,000 people in Balochistan so far have been affected by the 2011 monsoon rains. The human impact of this disaster in terms of the number of people affected is more than the combined impact of the Haiti earthquake and the Pakistan earthquake of 2005.
If assistance does not come quickly, then a second emergency of rising malnutrition and rising water-borne diseases risks making a public health disaster a reality – Neva Khan, Oxfam
Approximately 6.8 million acres of land have been damaged by the floods – an area nearly as large as Haiti.
The UN says the floods have wiped out 73 per cent of standing crops, 36 percent of livestock and 67 percent of food stocks in the 13 worst affected districts of Sindh. In a province where already 72 percent of the population is acutely short of food, this loss of crops means hundreds of thousands more people don’t have enough to eat.
Read more: Pakistan floods: a forgotten emergency
And Oxfam has echoed the concern regarding a slump in donations. Neva Khan, Oxfam Country Director in Pakistan, said: “This is a cruel repeat of last year. Again funding is too little and far too slow. Donors must recognise the gravity of the situation. If assistance does not come quickly, then a second emergency of rising malnutrition and rising water-borne diseases risks making a public health disaster a reality. There is no time to waste. We must all act now”.
She added: “People are living in desperate conditions. Each passing day puts more people at risk of deadly diseases, forces more people into hunger and destroys more futures. We are in a battle against time. Donors, the UN, aid agencies and the government, need to step up their response immediately.”
