Male, Oct 3 (SocialNews.XYZ) Pakistan’s Balochistan province had more than 134,000 flood-affected families verified for assistance, but four years after the devastating 2022 floods, the housing component of the World Bank-funded Integrated Flood Resilience and Adaptation Project (IFRAP) has been capped at around 69,000 homes, a report has stated.
The proposed additional $180 million in World Bank financing, which could have expanded housing coverage, has been dropped, with the funds instead being redirected towards roads and irrigation.
The figures raise questions over the post-flood commitment, particularly Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s pledge to provide resilient housing to families who lost their homes, according to a report in the ‘Maldives Insight’.
The floodwaters that ravaged Balochistan in 2022 have long receded, but for tens of thousands of families, the disaster is far from over, it noted.
“Their homes remain damaged or destroyed, reconstruction has stalled or been redefined, and a government promise to rebuild resilient houses has collided with funding disputes, conflicting official figures and allegations of irregularities. The latest restructuring of a World Bank-backed rehabilitation programme has turned that unfinished recovery into a stark question of state accountability,” the report detailed.
Although the 2022 floods affected much of Pakistan, it said, Balochistan faced an especially devastating impact due to its geographical conditions, inadequate infrastructure and socioeconomic vulnerabilities.
“When the World Bank approved $213 million for the Integrated Flood Resilience and Adaptation Project in May 2023, the programme was designed to support around 35,100 homeowners with resilient housing reconstruction grants,” the report mentioned.
The project steering committee, chaired by Pakistan Planning Minister Ahsan Iqbal and Balochistan Chief Minister Sarfraz Bugti, decided in June 2026 to cap the project’s housing coverage at roughly 69,000 homes and declined an additional $180 million in financing that was being considered, it highlighted.
“The remaining resources were redirected towards infrastructure, including roads and irrigation. The consequence is straightforward: a large proportion of verified families are no longer covered by the housing component as originally envisaged,” the report stated.
For the flood-affected families in Balochistan, restructuring cannot erase the reality of displacement. The 2022 floods destroyed their homes, and nearly four years later, funding decisions, administrative disputes and unresolved reconstruction records have left many still waiting for the permanent shelter they were promised, Maldives Insight noted.
“Pakistan secured more than $9 billion in international pledges at the January 2023 Geneva conference for flood recovery and reconstruction. The country subsequently created programmes intended to build back stronger and make vulnerable communities more resilient. In Balochistan, however, the promise of resilient reconstruction has become narrower with each administrative revision. The floods were a natural disaster. The unfinished recovery is not," it stressed.
Source: IANS
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