Friends Of ACTED - 2010 Pakistan Floods

From the InterAction site - 2010 Pakistan Flood Response:

Following the July 2010 disastrous floods in Pakistan, ACTED has been preparing a large scale emergency response in the districts of Swat, Lower Dir and Upper Dir, for 10,000 crisis affected families. The organization is planning to respond to the most pressing needs in terms of essential non-food items, water & sanitation, cash for work, emergency shelter and rehabilitation of basic infrastructure, in coordination with the UN, governmental authorities and NGOs. ACTED has more than 200 staff in Swat and Dir areas since 2009 following the last IDP crisis. More information and mapping of the current emergency assessment of the situation is available on: www.acted.org/en/floods-north-west-pakistan-over-2-million-affected-people.

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From the site - 2010 Pakistan Flood Response:

First water deliveries by ACTED
Blanket food distributions for 60,000 flood-affected populations

Islamabad, August 6th 2010 – Since July 21st, unprecedented monsoon rains have hit Pakistan– the worst monsoon on record since 1929-, with massive floods claiming nearly 1,500 lives and affecting millions of people. In the North West of the country, the torrential rains have wrecked entire villages, swallowed up by rivers in spate that have turned into wrenching torrents sweeping away houses, crops and livestock.

10 days after the start of the crisis, over 4 million people have been affected, among whom are numerous families already facing harsh difficulties in the North West of the country, hit by conflicts last year which have led to the displacement of over 2.2 million people. ACTED’s teams have been supporting these affected communities as they return to their area and throughout the long and difficult reconstruction process in the valley of Swat and Dir. Today, everything needs to be started all over again.

The massive floods have swept away the whole infrastructure, including bridges, roads and access routes, further isolating mountain villages in the North of the country. These harsh conditions have slowed down the arrival of relief which is urgently needed by the disaster victims who lack both food and water because of insufficient supplies reaching local markets. Communities are also facing increasing risks of water-borne diseases and other epidemics. In the Swat valley alone, hundreds of thousands of people have been affected by the catastrophe.

Since Sunday, ACTED’s teams present in the worst hit areas, in the North of the Swat valley and North of the Dir valley, have been concentrating on the assessment of the most urgent needs and on setting up emergency relief operations. On Thursday August 5th , ACTED began the first water deliveries to some 2,600 people in the villages without water. Overflowing rivers have polluted clean water sources and destroyed most of the water supply network. ACTED staff have delivered some 20,000 liters of drinking water and will carry on the distributions in the coming days, until a return to normal.

In the next few hours, ACTED is starting massive food distributions for over 60,000 Pakistanis located in the isolated districts North of the valley of Swat. Over several days, tons of food items will be flown by helicopter to these remote areas, where affected families will receive food to cover their immediate nutritional needs and those of their children.

For the past five days, ACTED’s resources in Pakistan have been fully devoted to responding to the emergency, with the transportation and delivery of basic non-food items (hygiene kits, tents, kitchenware, tools, etc.) and the setting-up of cleaning activities for the communities in order to clear away the mud which has filled homes and affected harvest and cattle, while providing the most vulnerable households with immediate cash.

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The Evolving Context of Needs and Relief in Pakistan

ACTED began emergency relief activities in Pakistan after the fatal earthquake of October 2005. In 2006 and 2007 emergency interventions evolved towards a development approach. Currently, ACTED in Pakistan strengthens its previous interventions and extends them to new areas in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Southern Punjab Province with a special focus on immediate relief operations to meet the basic needs of communities affected by conflicts and floods.

Following the floods of August 2008, ACTED started emergency response projects in Dir Area, with disaster preparedness programmes and hygiene promotion components. Following the devastating floods in the Rajanpur district of Punjab Province, inundating more than 139 villages and affecting more than 100,000 people in August 2008, ACTED set up a threefold intervention strategy addressing needs in terms of infrastructure rehabilitation, lack of access to cash for rapid recovery as well as hygiene hazards that put populations at risk.

To meet the needs of the unexpected influx of IDPs/Returnees after the resumption of the conflict in the Federally Administered Areas (FATA) in 2008, ACTED began an intervention to improve living conditions in tented camps through health, food security, Income Generating Activities (IGA), and hygiene promotion activities and focused on the “winterization” of three IDP camps hosting about 5,000 families.

Since October 2008, our teams have been implementing relief operations in favor of the most vulnerable displaced populations of the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan by providing them with essential items, access to drinking water, support in terms of sanitation and hygiene as well as in terms of income generation through the participation to basic rehabilitation works and clothes production for women. ACTED continues to assist the host communities in Mardan, Peshawar, Swabi and Nowshera districts, where IDPs are still present, while supporting the immediate recovery of the populations in the areas of return in Swat and Dir, as well as to those who have been unable to flee the conflict and who have remained in the region.

ACTED Pakistan also supports the implementation of the European Commission's “South Asia Invest” microfinance initiative.

In the future, ACTED in Pakistan will continue to support the development efforts following the emergency relief operations.