DFID provided emergency shelter and helped build resilience to floods in Pakistan from 2011-2013. Over 300,000 people received temporary shelter costing £11 per person. DFID then helped 45,000 families construct more durable flood-resistant homes costing £260 per family. Additional programs promoted livelihoods through kitchen gardens and wheat assistance, helping over 128,000 families avoid debt. Moving forward, DFID planned to work with governments and communities to further develop and validate resilient housing designs incorporating local materials like lime, as well as linked water, sanitation, and livelihoods programs to strengthen long-term resilience to future floods.

1. DFID – Pakistan:
How we respond to major floods in Pakistan
2011 to 2013

7. What is resilience in this context?

8. Can we help these people to become resilient to future floods?

9. Scale and comparisons
Recent FLOODS In Pakistan:
2012: 5m
5,600,000
4,200,000
3,750,000
3,200,000
3,000,000
2011: 8m
2,273,723
2010: 20m

10. Challenges and priorities
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The problem of design (= vulnerability)
Social fabric strong (happy people)
Pre-existing poverty
Do no Harm!
Build on lessons from 2010, etc.
Livelihoods: deeper into debt. What to do?
Deal with emergency first

12. Often destruction starts from the roof-down

13. Both katcha (mud) and pukka (brick) houses collapsed
These were built with international donor funds, and will all have
to be taken down and rebuilt.

15. An overview of “conventional” response
Large tent, £130 - £180 range. Limited adaptability
– can’t be used to reconstruct the home.
And expensive!

16. £18 / Unit
Cheap but not very good (not
much protection and dignity)

17. Cheaper tent (£100)
Pretty useless though…

18. In contrast – a DFID / IOM designed family shelter
£60 / family – including a solar light

19. Whole families: better protection, enhanced dignity

20. The “Roofing Kit” idea
• £58 per unit
• Used as temporary
shelter
• Later to build a
roof
• Double the value
of a tent
• And half the price

21. Roofing kit as seen from outside
Double value kit = good VfM

22. Hasheema is home and dry

23. Keila, mother
of four, built
walls by
herself
Says “this is so
much better
than a tent”

24. Mustafa, project manager for
HANDS, discussing options to
further reinforce the walls so
this house will be more flood
resistant.

25. Overall Results
Emergency shelter:
• 300,000 people reached
• (45,000 families)
• At cost of £3.4m
• or £11 per person.

26. Solar lights

27. OK but what does it mean?
Research:
Protection for women?
Economic savings?
Potential for small
businesses?
Ref. Grameen Shahkti Bangladesh

28. Next phase:
Flood Resistant Shelters
Criteria:
• Low cost – replicable
• Respect local vernacular
• Must be flood resistant
Design improvement # 1:
• Extended roof eaves

29. Thick walls with LIME

30. Lime is the key
• Flood resistant for
5,000 years
• Good local production
• Cheap
• Sukkur Barrage & Rome
– as evidence
• Leading experts as
advisors

32. Hydraulic lime goes hard underwater. So
let’s use it in the foundations and walls!

33. People build their own homes: bring
training to them

34. Raise the level of the
house

36. Keep what works well

37. Offer training on range of different designs

38. Engage whole communities:
• CBOs
• Conditional cash transfers
• The ability to listen

39. Before and after

40. If we do nothing – what really happens?

41. Key results – durable shelters
• 45,000 families (c.300,000 people) in durable
homes
• £11m invested
• Equals £260 per family (all costs)
• Compares with £3,500 per family in Aceh
• Or £1,800 per family Punjab / Sindh Govt.

42. Livelihoods:
41,000 families helped to
avoid debt for wheat crop
87,000 families are helped
to start kitchen gardens
WHAT IMPACT?

44. Household economy
Cash helped
But cash can’t build
resilience
80 to 100% spend on
FOOD
Huge food price
increases!
“We don’t grow our own
vegetables”
“Of course we’d like to
learn”

45. Kitchen gardens – introducing for the first time,
focusing on women.

46. The rationale for “joined-up programmes” – Shelter, WASH,
Livelihoods – to build resilience

47. What next?
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Bring the Government on board
Research and building evidence – 2010 to now
Engage academia
Validate the best strategy (VfM, technical)
Link into the broader resilience strategy
Innovate, test, research, validate

48. Poorly designed
overflow from septic
tanks
A common sight all over
Pakistan
A serious public health
problem has been
created, not resolved.

49. This series of pictures portrays normal village life in many villages in Pakistan and how, with
community mobilisation and low-cost, appropriate design, the transformation that could
be achieved. This need cost no more than conventional WASH and early recovery projects.
Residual
water from
hand-pump
lying stagnant
Overflow from septic
tanks creating disease
With lack of fodder,
goats roam free and eat
emerging trees and
plants
Slide 1: A normal village in Sindh: little shade in the extreme
heat, no kitchen gardens, high malnutrition, poor health
and hygiene, deforestation, denuded environment, etc.

50. Slide 2: Hand-pump residual water directed to sunken “sponge” gardens, planted with
bananas or other species; septic tanks linked to constructed wetlands; key tree species
planted, rainwater collection initiated.

51. Slide 3: Goats enclosed and controlled. Sunken beds below hand-pumps planted. Kitchen
gardens have started; constructed wetland for septic tank operational; specific native trees
planted around the compound, including mango / other fruits, neem and moringa species for
multiple nutritional and health benefits.

52. 3 to 5 years on, Moringa trees providing fodder for animals,
increasing milk production by up to 50% and weight gain < 35%
While providing multiple nutritional and health benefits for people
Kitchen gardens
saving 30 – 50%
people’s income on
food while
improving nutrition
Increased shade, wind
and flood protection,
better hygiene, sanitation
and nutrition, household
income boosted. Overall
resilience enhanced.
Constructed wetland system provides complete treatment for sewage
waste while providing habitat for bamboo and other useful species
Concept: DFID
Illustration and artwork: UNHABITAT