Humanitarian context
Pakistan, the fifth most populous country in the world, is facing various humanitarian crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite having low CO2 emissions, it suffers climatic catastrophes such as floods, droughts and extreme winters. Recurring natural calamities, such as heavy snowfall in January 2020 and persistent monsoon rains in the summer of 2022, affected millions of people, leaving them homeless and facing extremely cold conditions. In addition, the country faces problems with unemployment, conflict and political instability.
BENEFICIARIES
workers
NUTRITION
WATER, SANITATION AND HYGIENE
Our activity
Action Against Hunger helps Afghan refugees and the host population in Pakistan. To this end, it provides health services, integrated treatment of acute undernutrition and psychosocial and mental health support to children and women. Given how vulnerable the population is to natural disasters, the organization implemented projects in at-risk provinces to make them more prepared for emergencies and improved early detection systems.
Action Against Hunger also supported some of the 33 million people affected by floods in Sindh and Balochistan provinces. The funding enabled a rapid response to help vulnerable households, which resulted in cash distribution, provision of non-food items, rehabilitation of water facilities, construction of latrines and the creation of mobile medical camps. In addition, the team also provided psychological first aid training, distributed hygiene kits and provided agricultural tools.
WHERE
WE HELP
We help 24.5 million people each year. We work in 55 countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe, those most threatened by hunger.
EYEWITNESSES
ADIL JABBAR, A 50-YEAR-OLD AFGHAN REFUGEE, HAS SPENT MORE THAN HALF HIS LIFE IN PAKISTAN
where he works as a farmer with his siblings and six children, having fled Afghanistan after a severe drought destroyed their land.
In the summer of 2022, Pakistan suffered the worst monsoon rains in its history, resulting in the destruction of some 2.3 million homes. One of the worst affected provinces was Balochistan in south-west Pakistan, on the border with Afghanistan. An area where 41% of the population suffers from crisis levels of food insecurity (IPC). Despite this, the province is known as the fruit bowl of Pakistan, producing 90% of the country's grapes, cherries, almonds, apples, apricots and pomegranates. Precisely because so many people work in agriculture, climate change is a serious threat.
Action Against Hunger emergency teams launched an emergency response to help victims of the torrential rains, distributing warm clothes and hygiene kits for women, setting up water points and latrines, and providing households with cash assistance to meet their immediate needs.
Adil Jabbar is one of the survivors of the floods. This is how he remembers that day: "The water was getting closer and closer. I ran home and told everyone to leave immediately. My poor mother could not walk. The flood caught us unawares in the middle of the night."
"In Afghanistan we grew almonds and grapes. We had a ten-room mansion. But what's the point of having a mansion if you have nothing to eat? So we left the farm and the mansion and came here." After passing through several temporary shelters, Adil finally found a place to settle, but on the night of the floods, the house collapsed. Adil gathered his children, a suitcase and a blanket and left the life he had spent years building, as Pakistan was lashed by rain.
Action Against Hunger teams distributed warm clothes, mattresses, tarpaulins to protect houses from the rain and essential items for cooking, washing and ensuring access to clean water.