DND Report: Floodwaters are once again hitting Pakistan after India released water into eastern rivers. Gujranwala, Lahore, and Bahawalpur divisions are bearing the brunt, while over 200,000 people have already been evacuated by the Pakistan Army from flood-hit areas, including Lahore, Kasur, Sialkot, Faisalabad, Narowal, Okara, Sargodha, and Hafizabad.
This marks the second major flood disaster since 2022. Unlike the previous catastrophe, which was triggered largely by monsoon rains, this time, cloudbursts in Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) have already wreaked havoc in upper regions. Irrigation and disaster management experts are warning that financial, livestock, and human losses could surpass the devastation caused in 2022.
After the 2022 floods, Pakistan admitted that it did not have the capacity to manage the financial burden of the disaster and turned to the international community for assistance. The United Nations arranged a special donors’ conference in Geneva, Switzerland, where international lenders and donor countries pledged $11 billion against Pakistan’s estimated $30 billion losses.
At the conference, it was agreed that Pakistan would submit investable projects with comprehensive feasibility studies, cost estimates, and recovery plans so that pledged funds could be disbursed in a transparent and effective manner. However, Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb openly admitted during a conference in Islamabad:
“Let’s accept that we could not come up with investable projects to benefit from the billions of dollars pledged in Geneva.”
He questioned whether state institutions had learned any lessons from the devastation of 2022, highlighting that Pakistan is simultaneously facing two existential threats: climate change and unchecked population growth.
According to official estimates, the 2022 floods inflicted damages worth $30 billion. Of this amount, $4.6 billion was allocated for oil financing and $6.4 billion for rehabilitation and reconstruction projects. Yet, Pakistan could not secure the full amount due to its failure to prepare credible, bankable projects. As a result, only $2.8 billion was actually disbursed by lenders.
International donors have grown increasingly cautious in their financial dealings with developing countries. Funds are now released strictly against viable, auditable, and loophole-free projects. This requires technical expertise in project development and monitoring, but Pakistan continues to rely on a generalist civil administration that lacks specialists in finance, climate adaptation, and infrastructure management.
Finance Minister Aurangzeb as well as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of the National Assembly have both confirmed that Pakistan lost a significant portion of international pledges due to this institutional weakness.
Donor Commitments vs. Actual Disbursements:
World Bank: Pledged $2.2 billion → Disbursed $1.6 billion
Asian Development Bank (ADB): Pledged $1.6 billion → Released $513 million
China & Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB): Pledged $1.1 billion → Released $250 million
Islamic Development Bank (IsDB): Promised $600 million → Released $231 million
Paris Club: Pledged $800 million → Released $139 million
United States: Promised $100 million → Released $70 million
This major shortfall in disbursements left several critical rehabilitation and reconstruction projects either delayed or abandoned altogether.
Shockingly, no formal inquiry has ever been initiated to determine responsibility for this massive financial and administrative failure. The lack of accountability has raised questions about governance and institutional efficiency at both federal and provincial levels.
Since 2022, political power distribution has remained largely the same:
PML-N in the federal government and Punjab (except for the interim setup before the 2024 elections), PPP in Sindh and PTI in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
This is essentially the same political configuration that was in place under the PDM coalition when the Geneva pledges were first made, making it unclear why the ruling parties have not pursued accountability for the lost billions.
Pakistan today faces not just another flood but a repeated cycle of unpreparedness, institutional incapacity, and missed opportunities. Unless structural reforms are introduced to strengthen technical expertise in governance, the country risks losing future donor confidence as well—leaving millions vulnerable in the face of recurring climate disasters.
Scientific studies, such as those from the IPCC’s Sixth Assessment Report, indicate a 30% increase in extreme rainfall events in South Asia since 1950 due to climate change, challenging Pakistan’s unpreparedness and raising questions about the effectiveness of international aid tied to technical project requirements as Pakistan is working with old-fashioned bureaucracy with lack of experts of planning, execution and finance while political governments mostly keep their eyes shut over civil administrative failures.
