Synopsis
South Asia is the fastest growing region in the world. However, a changing climate could threaten this growth, with the region’s nearly 2 billion people subject to longer and heavier monsoon seasons and droughts. In 2022, Sindh Province in Pakistan experienced historic floods, while the state of Uttarakhand in India has been wracked by devastating landslides, earthquakes, and floods, including the 2013 Kedarnath floods, which caused extensive damage and took the lives of more than 4,000 people. Disasters can reverse years of development gains and push people into poverty, with global average annual losses from weather-related and other disasters in cities alone averaging $415 billion.
The World Bank has been helping countries in South Asia adopt a proactive approach to managing disaster and climate risks. It supports them in building resilient systems and infrastructure and engaging local communities to ensure that everyone enjoys development gains, especially women and other disavantaged groups who tend to be more severely affected by disasters. The World Bank has helped put this approach into action in Pakistan’s Sindh Province and the Indian State of Uttarakhand by supporting local government efforts to rebuild resilient homes and infrastructure while also working to ensure women’s inclusion in durable rebuilding.
Challenge
South Asia is one of the world’s most vulnerable regions to climate disasters, and urgent action is needed at both the national and regional levels to better adapt and enhance resilience. More than half of the population—750 million people—have been affected by one or more climate-related disasters in the past two decades.
In Pakistan, flooding causes annual estimated losses exceeding $1 billion. Socially and economically disadvantaged groups are the hardest hit, as they are often left behind in relief efforts. Extreme poverty levels, weak institutional frameworks, and competing fiscal priorities further constrain Pakistan’s capacity to cope. The 2022 floods affected approximately 33 million people and resulted in losses exceeding $30 billion. The floods damaged or destroyed more than 2 million homes in Sindh Province, as most of them were not built to withstand such events.
Climate change also exacerbates the disaster vulnerability of Uttarakhand, a mountainous state in the Himalayas that is assailed regularly by flash floods, landslides, forest fires, glacial outbursts, cloudbursts, and earthquakes. While the state has made noteworthy progress in disaster management since the 2013 Kedarnath floods, gaps remain and a more integrated approach to disaster risk management is needed.
Approach
“Build better before” is the mainstay of the World Bank’s and the Global Facility for Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDDRR)’s approach to disaster risk management. “Build better before” is a proactive strategy to build resilient physical and social infrastructure and strengthen the capacity of institutions to manage climate-induced shocks before they happen.
The Sindh Flood Emergency Housing Reconstruction Project focused on reducing vulnerability and building disaster resilience among the hardest hit households—the poorest—by providing them with housing reconstruction subsidy grants through direct bank transfers, which allows them to choose materials and methods for building multi-hazard resilient homes according to their specific needs.
The Sindh Flood Emergency Housing Reconstruction Project utilizes a geo-enabled Management Information System to assess eligibility and disburse housing grants, as well as monitor project results and outcomes for over 2 million beneficiaries. The Kobo Toolbox serves as a robust database and dashboard, with more than 20,000 environmental and social assessments at the village level, providing critical data and information to support pilots in development planning and housing reconstruction.
Proactive disaster relief efforts through the World Bank and GFDRR have been supporting the Uttarakhand Disaster Recovery Project (UDRP) since 2014 to build resilience, restore connectivity, and enhance the capacity to respond effectively to future risks. Housing reconstruction aims to reduce vulnerability by providing safe housing for living and ensuring gender inclusion. State-of-the-art building standards set exemplary benchmarks for sustainable building practices and operational efficiency in disaster risk management. As a pilot, a few buildings were proposed for a GRIHA 4-star green building rating, and one building was designed with seismic bearings for earthquake resistance. The project also introduced innovative bridge construction techniques, such as prefabricated modular steel bridge designs that are built to be resilient against future disasters.
The UDRP has focused on keeping inclusion at the center of its efforts, enabling women to become new homeowners and gain financial independence. The project empowered women in many ways: when households opened bank accounts to receive grants of support, the project encouraged joint bank accounts in the name of both husband and wife to ensure that women could access formal financial services and promote transparency in aid payments; the project encouraged families to have joint ownership of land attached to newly rebuilt houses so women would have collateral assets to apply for a bank loan and develop a greater sense of socioeconomic security; women also actively participated in the entire housing reconstruction process from early consultations to design and rebuilding work; and construction of toilets in every house built acted as a preventive to gender-based violence.
Results
The Sindh Flood Emergency Rehabilitation Project achieved an exceptional pace for post-disaster reconstruction. The project benefited 3 million people with timely infrastructure reconstruction or repair. This includes plugging or reinforcing 208 major breaches in embankments, canals and drains, enabling 350,000 acres of agricultural land to be used for crop sowing and rehabilitating 800 fish farms.
It provided enhanced flood protection for 2.3 million people, 48 percent of whom were women, by rehabilitating 205 kilometers of embankments to resilient standards and reconstructing 130 farm-to-market roads. This effort provided 3.5 million people with last-mile connectivity and access to markets and services. The project provided clean water access to 1.5 million people through restoration of 250 water supply and drainage schemes.
The Sindh Emergency Housing Reconstruction Project strengthened human capital and improved short-term livelihoods for 140,000 people by training 20,000 masons in multi-hazard-resilient construction as part of the Owner-Driven Construction of Houses (ODCH) reconstruction effort. Masons are equipped with knowledge of earthquake-resistant construction and retrofitting techniques which they utilize when citizens call upon them to rebuild. The SFERP restored community infrastructure across 2,000 settlements, with female participation at 44.6 percent.
Over 150,000 houses have been successfully completed with support from cash grants; 152,000 women, or 37 percent of the beneficiaries, received such grants, representing 37 percent of the total beneficiaries. Moreover, 36 percent of the approximately 800,000 beneficiaries were women who opened bank accounts, and 37 percent of the grant recipients were for housing reconstruction. It is anticipated that 410,000 multi-hazard houses will be reconstructed by 2027.
The Uttarakhand Disaster Recovery Project benefited more than 747,000 people, or 7.5 percent of the state’s population, from 2014-2023 through the construction of 2,382 resilient houses, 1,572 km of roads, 26 public buildings, 81 bridges, eight road protection works, and five river protection works. The project shifted disaster and climate risk management from a reactive to a more proactive approach, leading to the establishment of the newly created Uttarakhand State Disaster Management Authority (USDMA) and the State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), the largest search and rescue training center in North India.