Dr Abdul Wahid Soomro (MNA Pakistan Peoples Party)

Microsoft Pakistan is working closely with different NGOs and Government bodies in Pakistan as part of the rescue and prevention effort now underway.
In this regard Microsoft announced a relief package consisting of $ 700,000 cash-donation, deployment of disaster management software for the Govt. of Punjab at no cost, urgent food supplies to the flood victims in KPK province and software donations to various NGOs currently involved in relief activities.
In the first and the most urgent phase of this humanitarian assistance, Microsoft Pakistan team volunteered in donating and distributing food items comprising flour, rice, cooking oil, sugar and tea to the hundreds of families left destitute by the heavy monsoon rains, which have ravaged different parts of Pakistan.
A group of individuals from Microsoft team has visited Nowshera and its surroundings four times in last one month to deliver urgently needed food supplies to flood victims there. So far over 300 families have been reached.
“It has been extremely difficult to reach these vulnerable families,” said Shoaib Khalil, Marketing Lead, Microsoft Pakistan.

پنجاب کی مختلف یونیورسٹیوں کے طلبہ و طالبات کی مدد سے سیلاب زدگان کے مسمار شدہ اور ٹوٹے ہوئے گھر بنانے کے لیے سورج مہم کے نام سے ایک منصوبے کا آغاز کیا گیا ہے۔
اس منصوبے کے تحت طالب علموں کی تکنیکی مدد اور خود سیلاب زدگان کی اپنی کوششوں سے بہت قلیل وقت میں ان کے گھر بنا دیئے جائیں گے اور اس کے لیے سب سے پہلے ملتان کے علاقے نواب پور کے دیہات چنےگئے ہیں اور پہلے مرحلے
میں ستر سے زائد گھر بنائے جائیں گے۔

“They have tens of thousands of troops on flood duty. The army has really been the major factor in the rescue effort, and you can’t do both things at once,” said Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. – Reuters Photo

NEW YORK: Pakistan’s fight against militants has been constrained by the need to deploy troops to help victims of recent devastating floods, the senior US official for Pakistan and Afghanistan said on Tuesday.
Ambassador Richard Holbrooke said there was no evidence yet that Islamabad was acting on Washington's demands that it move against the Haqqani group, a Taliban ally which US officials suspect has ties to Pakistani intelligence, and suggested this was because of the country's devastating floods.
“They have tens of thousands of troops on flood duty. The army has really been the major factor in the rescue effort, and you can't do both things at once,” said Holbrooke, who spoke in New York as part of a Reuters Washington Summit.
He dismissed suggestions, however, that the Pakistani government's halting response to the flood disaster was creating instability in the country.

One of the sadder realities of an integrating world is ‘aid politics’: donor countries and organisations are more generous in funding projects that conform to their own interests. But that this pattern is emerging in terms of the flood-relief funding coming into Pakistan deserves to be condemned.

The UN’s emergency response appeal has netted more funds for relatively long-term need projects such as communications, security and awareness-raising. Meanwhile, the appeal for critical-care projects that include emergency medical help, potable water supplies and income creation is going unheard. The three best-funded projects are the UNHCR’s protection project, the International Organisation of Migration’s mass communication project and the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs’ coordination and advocacy project. These have received funding many times in excess of the demand. Conversely, projects in areas such as water and sanitation, reproductive health etc are grossly under-funded, with the UN’s Population Fund complaining on Wednesday that its $6m appeal for the health of mothers and babies got a mere 20 per cent response.

ISLAMABAD: Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira on Monday on Monday said that every flood-hit family would get Rs20,000 before Eid.
After the meeting on the Council of Common Interests (CCI), Kaira informed a press briefing that the meeting had finalised the Disaster Oversight Council.
He said that free seeds and fertilisers will be provided to the owners of less than 25 acres of agricultural land.
The minister said that all the details of flood situation, relief and rehabilitation will be posted on a website. “To make every thing transparent, the information related to expenditures will also be post on the website,” he added.
Kaira said that the government will also request the NGOs to add flood related details and expenditures on their respective websites.
Original Post@Dawn.com

ISLAMABAD: Over 2.5 million children under the age of five have been affected by floods, says a report released by an international anti-poverty agency.
There are about 1.4 million (eight per cent) pregnant and lactating women among the affected people and over one million are elderly or otherwise vulnerable.

The Actionaid report said there was an urgent need for nutrition assistance, especially for young children and pregnant and lactating women.

It said also called for community-level programmes to fight acute malnutrition and dissemination of messages on feeding and hygiene for infants and young children in the affected areas.

The number of schools being used as shelters has decreased to 5,258 and 1.3 million people are living in them.

KARACHI: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani Saturday said relief efforts would be extended to six months as floods ravage more southern towns in the worst disaster to hit the country.
A month after monsoons triggered catastrophic flooding throughout the country, submerging an area the size of England, eight million remain dependent on handouts for their survival, which they say are too slow coming.
“In the current circumstances and urgent needs, the relief phase which was earlier planned to end on October 30, now will continue for six months,” Gilani told the lower house of the federal parliament.
“Early recovery phase shall be completed by December 30, while damage and need assessment by World Bank and Asian Development Bank would be completed by September 30,” he added.
Authorities in Sindh province were busy evacuating more people to safety in several flooded towns around 350 kilometres north of Karachi as officials said thousands more tents were urgently needed.