Forewarned, but not forearmed? : Lessons for the recent floods in Pakistan from 2010

In this paper, the author summarizes the lessons learned from the social protection and wider disaster recovery in the 2010 floods in Pakistan and discusses how they can benefit from ongoing efforts to recover from the floods in the country in 2022, and other settings. As climate change results in recurrent and more frequent natural disasters, each calamity proves instructional for the future.

The experience of the 2010 flood relief and rehabilitation rollout provide important recommendations for responding to the 2022 floods in Pakistan:

• Investments in governance and delivery systems pay off during a crisis.
• Underlying economic and social inequities need to be overcome through better outreach to, and the inclusion of traditionally excluded groups.
• Over the medium term, rebuilding destroyed capacity - physical, human and social will be critical for future resilience, including building back better.