Why Must Pakistan Invest in Climate-Resilient Infrastructure?
Every year the federal government and provinces spend billions of rupees on infrastructure development programs. These expenditures are mainly to kickstart the economy, generate jobs, and facilitate other industries. As a nation, we also know how these projects are selected and the other reasons for such huge spending from borrowed money on high-interest rates.
However, in the midst of Pakistan’s economic meltdown and ever-increasing challenges of climate change, we must invest in resilient infrastructure capable of responding to the effects of recurring disasters.
Last year floods in Pakistan affected 33 million people and inundated one-third of the country. Resulting in 1731 death and more than 2.2 million houses fully and partially damaged, including 13,000 kilometers of roads and 439 bridges, and around ten dams destroyed. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has officially identified 116 districts affected by monsoon floods across Pakistan.
Thirty-two of the 90 declared as ‘disaster-affected’ districts were in Balochistan, while 24 were in Sindh. Clearly, the districts of Sindh and Balochistan, Pakistan’s least developed areas, were the worst affected by last year’s floods. Most of the damage occurred in those tehsils and taluks that were already severely underdeveloped. It will take years, if not decades, to recover from such economic and social catastrophes.
According to the Chief Minister of Sindh, 60% of road infrastructure was damaged after last year’s floods in his province. It has been reported that kilometers of roads and several bridges were washed away, cutting cities and affecting communities from the rest of the country for several days. Many of those roads and bridges were built or repaired in the last ten years after divested floods of 2010. Many of the dams destroyed in Balochistan served the more underprivileged communities of the region.
Before the 2022 floods made havoc on our crippling infrastructure, there were multiple examples where our planners failed to integrate climate and disaster considerations into the design and build. The Left Bank Outfall Drain (LBOD) canal is a classic example of the project’s million dollars failure to deliver. Furthermore, the Karachi-Hyderabad motorway M9 failed multiple times due to heavy rains, which that’s not the only example to quote here where culverts were either not added or not designed properly to drain rainwater adequately.
Last year’s floods were not unprecedented, and we no longer have the luxury of brushing aside our responsibilities. One thing is certain is that these thousands of kilometers of road, hundreds of bridges, and other key infrastructure were not climate resilient and failed to an event of such magnitude. Furthermore, our development programs need to be aligned with climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction measures.
Several local and international reports, jointly prepared by our own government, revealed that disasters of such magnitude are increasing in frequency and intensity and would impact worse. But such stark warnings never resulted in building more climate-resilient infrastructure in Pakistan.
According to a World Bank assessment, climate-resilient infrastructure investments in low- and middle-income countries may provide overall benefits of roughly US$4 for every dollar spent. More resilient infrastructure pays for itself by extending its life cycle and providing more reliable services, especially when they are most required.
Climate-resilient infrastructure is defined as “it is planned, designed, built and operated in a way that anticipates, prepares for, and adapts to changing climate conditions. It can also withstand, respond to, and recover rapidly from disruptions caused by these climate conditions”. Climate-resilient infrastructure refers to assets and systems including roads, bridges, and power lines that can resist extreme weather events.
Internationally, a lot of work is being done on building climate-resilient infrastructure. A proactive approach to enhancing resilience can start with climate-resilient infrastructure. Climate-resilient infrastructure has the potential to improve service dependability, extend asset life, and guarantee asset returns. Infrastructure accounts for 88% of the projected costs of climate change adaptation.
Key Infrastructure includes roads, bridges, motorways, and key supply lines, such as electricity, Internet, mobile, gas, and water supply. These are the vital organs that help run a country but also help during and after the disaster for better response and recovery.
Infrastructure not only takes the direct losses from disasters but also contributes to the in-direct business and agriculture losses caused by disruption to the transportation and electricity supply. Climate-resilient infrastructure is essential in reducing direct and indirect losses from disasters.
Developing countries like Bangladesh, Kenya, Vietnam, and Peru have invested in many climate-resilient infrastructure projects in different sectors.
We can learn from Bangladesh how to build resilient infrastructure and invest in disaster risk reduction. In 1970 Cyclone Bhola killed about 300,000 people and was the worst cyclone in history. Five decades later, in 2020, category five super Cyclone Amphan killed around 20 people in Bangladesh.
Bangladesh has invested in early warning systems, a network of 14,000 cyclone shelters, evacuation plans, and restoration of storm-buffering mangroves, as well as an army of volunteers to protect vulnerable populations in hazard-prone areas. Other disaster risk reduction measures reduce the casualty level to double digits.
Spending billions of rupees yearly is futile when we cannot improve our design standards to integrate climate resilience into infrastructure. We know how these politically motivated projects are selected to benefit a certain segment of society and might have little to do with the actual needs.
Our habit of spending mindless billions of rupees on politically motivated projects must stop. Money from international donors and institutes is hard to come by. They have plenty on their plate. It’s time that we spend every rupee very wisely and save six in the future.
The big question is “Does Pakistan have the capacity to design and build climate-resilient infrastructure?”. Do we have the mechanism or framework to include indigenous disaster risk reduction knowledge in infrastructure development? Despite there is understanding in decision-making quarters, however, the simple answer is no, Pakistan doesn’t have the capacity to design and build.
