Baby born amid Pakistan floods is named after UNDP programme

The parents of a baby boy in Pakistan have named him in honour of a UNDP-supported programme to assist those seeking asylum and those offering shelter to refugees in the country.

Emergency facilities, operated by the Refugee Affected and Hosting Areas programme (RAHA), provided the ambulance and medical care to deliver baby Raha Khan safely, on 8 September 2010, amid the country’s worst floods in recorded history.

The floods, which hit in late July 2010, have affected at least 20 million people in Pakistan – some 10 percent of the country’s total population – and killed more than 1,800. Nearly 1.9 million homes in an area of about 160,000 square kilometres have been damaged or destroyed.

When Anila Abass went into labour on 7 September, she had been living with her husband at a flood relief camp in the village of Yousafabad in the district of Nowshera. The nearest public and military hospitals were closed due to heavy damage caused by flood waters.

A neighbour in the relief camp referred the couple to the Mera Akora Khattak free medical centre, established by RAHA. Within 10 minutes of calling the centre, an ambulance arrived and took Anila to the labour room, where a doctor and a nurse facilitated the safe delivery of her baby. 

The five-year RAHA programme was launched in 2009 by the Government of Pakistan for the provinces of Khyber, Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan. It is supported by the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The RAHA programme was originally designed to promote peaceful coexistence between Afghan refugees and local communities by repairing roads, creating jobs in agriculture and irrigation, maintaining crops and livestock, rehabilitating health facilities and services, and providing safe drinking water.

When the floods hit, the RAHA team, which had already been working in the two most affected districts of Khyber and Pakhtunkhwa, took on a prominent role in providing disaster relief. The team rushed to provide immediate assistance to flood victims, realizing there would a time-lag before international aid could reach the area.

With the support of the Pakistani government, RAHA delivered food and water to a number of affected families in its existing network. 

RAHA also notified the World Health Organization (WHO) of the urgent need to establish medical relief camps in affected parts of Nowshera and Peshawar. WHO responded immediately, releasing funds to set up four free medical centres for one month in the districts of Peshawar and Nowshera.

RAHA staff members were instrumental in helping WHO to provide these camps, and they performed outreach work in the area to make free local health facilities available to those in need.

In the coming year RAHA aims to continue providing assistance to communities that have been damaged, first by the Afghan crisis, and then by the recent floods. Its work will involve building the capacity of government entities, communities and crisis management organizations in Pakistan to increase disaster preparedness, issue early diaster warnings and develop disaster management strategies.

UNDP will continue to support the RAHA programme as it carries out these efforts.

Already, the RAHA programme has had a meaningful impact on one family in particular.

“I am indebted to RAHA for their help and for saving the lives of my wife and child,” said Abass’s husband Khalid, who was delighted when the nurse told him that his baby and wife were in good health. “May my and your RAHA live long!”