When churning floodwaters swept away a group of tourists in Pakistan’s Swat Valley in June, the whole country felt a sense of déjà vu.
Just three years ago, extensive floods had swallowed entire hotels and families vacationing in the “Switzerland of Pakistan,” leaving more than 1,700 dead and causing billions in damage. Today, extreme rainfall has once again inundated swathes of the country, underscoring Pakistan’s status as one of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations.
The monsoon, which began earlier than usual on June 26, has so far killed nearly 900 people and injured more than 1,180 across Pakistan, NDMA data shows. Almost half of the deaths came in three weeks as torrential rains and flash floods killed more than 400 people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Thousands of houses in Swat were damaged, with losses running into billions of rupees.
Punjab, the country’s most populous province and agricultural hub, is among the worst hit. Officials say 46 people have been killed, nearly 3.9 million affected, 1.8 million displaced, and thousands of villages inundated as the Chenab, Ravi, and Sutlej rivers overflowed since late July.
“This is a critical time for the city and district of Multan,” Punjab Disaster Management Authority Director General Irfan Ali Kathia told reporters. Nationwide, the NDMA says more than 883 people have died in floods, rains, and landslides this season, reviving memories of the 2022 deluge that submerged a third of the country, displaced 30 million, and inflicted losses exceeding $35 billion.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), flood-hit communities urgently need shelter, medical assistance, clean water, hygiene kits, cash-for-work support, and protection services, particularly for women and girls.
“The authorities are leading the response with the support of the United Nations and local partners,” a spokesperson said.
Yet the recurring tragedies highlight Pakistan’s woeful disaster preparedness, as lofty climate funding pledges from advanced, higher-emitting countries and multilateral donors fail to materialize, Bloomberg reported.
The shortfall reflects the grim irony facing less-developed economies that contribute little to climate change but bear its heaviest impacts.
Less than half of the roughly $11 billion pledged by the European Union, China, the Asian Development Bank, and others after the 2022 floods has reached Pakistan, according to OCHA, citing government data. Projects have been identified for about three-quarters of the pledges, the Ministry of Economic Affairs says.
At the same time, new pledges continue even as older commitments remain partly unmet. The European Union last week committed $1.1 million in emergency aid for flood-hit areas, while the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations announced fresh support worth $3 million and $600,000, respectively.
Pakistan — already grappling with economic and political crises — estimates it needs $348 billion in investment through 2030, including $16 billion just to recover from the 2022 disaster, according to World Bank calculations.
“The number one problem for Pakistan’s ability to do what it needs to do is the lack of financing,” said Mohamed Yahya, the UN’s Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Pakistan.
Of the pledges made, about $4.5 billion has been disbursed as of June, mostly for rebuilding housing, transport, drainage, and flood risk management. The ADB says it has provided $528 million, including for a reconstruction project in Sindh, while the World Bank has channeled about $1 billion into new reconstruction and adaptation efforts in Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan. It has also approved another $600 million on top of its original pledge.
Still, officials say the gap is vast. Globally, the UN estimates the funding shortfall for climate adaptation at $187 billion a year, worsened by donor fatigue and fiscal pressures in advanced economies.
Many EU countries want China to share more of the burden, while a pullback from climate commitments in some Western nations — including the US’ earlier withdrawal from the Paris Agreement — has further weakened flows.
Financing also tends to come as loans or diverted funds, making it less attractive to countries already mired in debt. Pakistan’s Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb admitted in August that the country had failed to develop enough “investable” projects to absorb pledged flood-related financing, according to local news reports.
Domestic challenges compound the problem. Political upheaval, corruption, and poor resource management have left Pakistan with little fiscal space to shoulder the costs of climate adaptation.
“The government has to ensure that they do their homework in terms of the needs of communities across Pakistan and then develop plans accordingly,” Imran Khalid, an environmental scientist in Islamabad, told Bloomberg. Stronger urban planning and better systems to manage large-scale financing are urgently required, he added.
Pakistan’s national adaptation plan calls for investments in early warning systems, wetlands to capture runoff, and infrastructure resilient to the drought–flood cycles that batter its farmland. Climate Change Minister Musadik Malik told parliament in July that the government is developing a strategy to disburse and track climate-related flows.
Some progress is being made. In July, Pakistan launched a remote sensing satellite with China for round-the-clock disaster assessment. It is also working with the UN to train officials and expand early warning systems in the vulnerable valleys of Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The urgency is clear. Rainfall this season has been 82% higher than last year, the weather agency says. Nearly 900 people have died, thousands have been displaced, and acres of crops destroyed. With more than 7,200 glaciers — the world’s largest outside the poles — Pakistan faces floods as its most frequent natural disaster.
“If devastating events continue to happen along the way, they can add to the economic burden,” said Zeeshan Salahuddin, a partner at Tabadlab, a think tank in Islamabad. “And this is why Pakistan really needs to focus more on finding innovative finance solutions.”
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