Pakistan is facing a number of complex humanitarian crises that have different causes and effects. The country is also affected by natural disasters on a regular basis. While many people have returned to their homes, 1.2 million are still displaced. This includes over 18,000 in IDP camps (as of January 2016). The government plans for all displaced people to return by the end of November 2016.
The STAIT was invited by the Humanitarian Coordinator (HC) and the Emergency Directors Group to support an assessment of the humanitarian response in Pakistan. The mission focused on the following elements of the response:
- Emergency Response Preparedness
- Delivery
- Links between humanitarian, recovery, and development programming
- Leadership and coordination
- Protection and Accountability to Affected People
The mission was led by the STAIT, with representatives from UNICEF, UNDP, UNHCR, and Concern Worldwide. The mission members conducted meetings, workshops, and interviews with over two hundred and fifty people in Islamabad, Peshawar, Karachi, and Lahore. This included group meetings and bi-laterals with the national and provincial authorities, the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT), Inter-Cluster Coordination Mechanism (Peshawar), clusters, national and international NGOs, donors, and other national counter-parts.
At the end of the mission, support was given to the HCT to develop an action plan on key issues and good practices identified during the missions. The plan sets out a series of actions including:
- Strengthen investment in humanitarian emergency response preparedness
- Improve humanitarian development programme convergence
- Enhance engagement with national and local NGOs as strategic and equal partners
- Invest in cash programming as a means of effective programme delivery
- Establish a collective system for Accountability to Affected People (AAP) and develop a HCT Centrality of Protection strategy