News
Pakistan: Politicising Humanitarianism
Four weeks have passed since the beginning of the floods in Pakistan and the people’s suffering has reached alarming levels. Even if relatively high, the number of dead persons pales in comparison with the hardship faced by the living. The locals have not just lost their homes and their hard earned livelihoods; they’ve also lost the hope of braving the near future with dignity.
Around 17 million acres of Pakistan’s most productive land has been submerged in the flowing water and over 200.000 livestock have been killed. The majority of grain stocked for feeding the remaining animals has also been washed away. Some experts estimate the losses in agriculture and farming to be around 2.9 billion US dollars.
All this shows that there are severe consequences for the people who didn’t just lose their houses and their living; they lost the opportunity to rebuild what they had in the foreseeable future.
Faced with this tragedy, it seems that the international response has been underwhelming and ineffective. The global financial crisis isn’t a satisfactory explanation. We can identify several reasons for this state of affairs, among them being the image of Pakistan as a base for terrorist activities and radicalism. This image impacts negatively on the amount of help NGOs are allowed to offer.
Instead of restricting them, we should A.R.M. the NGOs. In order to create a landscape of trustworthy, efficient, local NGOs, the policy should be to Allow, Regulate and Monitor their activity.
The Governments, NGOs, donors and beneficiaries share the same goal. We must build bridges about humanitarian dialogue, not politicise humanitarian activity.
We must be open, transparent, inclusive, open up the dialogue and help the ones who need it most.
Dr Hany El Banna
Comments