LocationsA Flood of Inequalities
October 28, 2025
The sun was setting over Jaffarabad, Balochistan, when Benazir stepped into what used to be her farmland. The earth beneath her feet had turned to water – an endless, muddy sea that stretched to the horizon. Her wheat, her savings, her years of labor – all gone. “The floods took everything,” I heard her whispering.
But Benazir’s voice carries far beyond her village. It echoes across Pakistan’s floodplains, across the lives of millions of women who stand at the trembling edge of a changing climate. When the waters rise, it is often women who lose first and recover last: their homes, their livelihoods, their sense of control over their own lives.
And when the water finally recedes, it is women who pick up the pieces to start again.
Because when climate inequality meets gender inequality, the tide always pulls deeper.
Where Climate Change and Gender Inequality Intersect
Even in calmer seasons, women shoulder invisible weights. Though they make up nearly half of Pakistan’s population, more than 40 million working aged women remain outside the formal economy. Two thirds of those who do work toil in the fields, busy with planting, harvesting, feeding, and often without pay, protection, or recognition.
Their hands keep families fed and communities alive. But when floods arrive, those same hands must do the impossible – rebuild a life with nothing left to rebuild from.
When men leave to find work or safer ground, women stay. They become everything at once: caregivers, farmers, heads of households, survivors. Each inequality that existed before the flood becomes heavier, sharper, and more visible. Survival becomes its own act of resistance.
After the Flood: How Disaster Reshaped Women’s Lives
Every few years, the skies open, the rivers rise, and Pakistan relives its nightmare.
In 2022, observing from afar, I saw the floods displaced 33 million people. Nearly 900,000 homes wiped out under the weight of water. For women, the losses ran deeper than walls and roofs. As homes and livelihoods washed away, so did safety and dignity.
Early marriages rose. Gender-based violence surged. Girls dropped out of school and never returned. Health centers collapsed, cutting off maternal care when it was needed most.
In Sindh, Balochistan, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the pattern was painfully familiar: the poorer the woman, the harder she fell, and the longer it took to rise. In one Sindh village alone, 45 child marriages were reported in a single year after the floods – an 18% spike in desperation disguised as tradition. Over 640,000 adolescent girls faced greater risks of coercion, abuse, and early marriage.
Climate disasters don’t just create inequality. They reveal it – raw, unfiltered, and devastating.
The New Wave of Loss: What the 2025 Floods Reveal
And now, the water has come again.
The floods of 2025 have submerged vast stretches of Pakistan once more. Over 6 million people affected. More than a thousand lives lost. Over two million hectares of fertile cropland – much of it tended by women – buried beneath a blanket of brown water.
For families still haunted by 2022 floods, this new wave feels almost unbearable. Displacement, debt, hunger, and fear are constant companions. And when recovery begins, women are too often pushed to the margins, last to receive aid, last to access credit, last to be heard in decisions that shape their future.
If rebuilding looks the same as before – without systemic change – it will only rebuild the inequalities that broke us.
Rebuilding with Purpose: Women at the Heart of UNDP’s Recovery Effort
But at UNDP, we learn that recovery can tell a different story.
Our Flood Recovery Programme begins with one promise: women will not only be seen and heard, but they will also lead.
Across the flood-hit plains, women are reclaiming what the waters tried to take. Over 5,000 have received agricultural kits, seeds, and tools – small instruments of survival that carry the power of renewal. Training in business, digital marketing, finance, and leadership helps transform recovery from an act of endurance into one of empowerment.
Women in home-based trades – once cut off from markets and income – are stitching hope back together, literally. Embroidery kits, sewing machines, and start-up support have helped women rebuild micro-enterprises and reimagine their futures.
This is not just about restoring what was damaged. It’s about redesigning what can last. Every project, every plan, is guided by inclusion – from housing and governance to disaster preparedness – aligned with Pakistan’s Resilient Recovery, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction (4RF) Framework. Because resilience built with women is resilience that benefits all.
Beyond Relief: Building Gender-Responsive Resilience
In my visit to the flood-hit villages of Sindh and the cracked plains of Balochistan, I can still see it – women gathering under the open sky, weaving mats, tending seedlings, leading small cooperatives. Their faces are tired, but their voices are steady.
“I’ve lost everything twice,” one woman said, “but I haven’t lost my hope.”
The road ahead remains steep. Women still face walls – to credit, to mobility, to participation. Development financing still overlooks the informal work that keeps families afloat. Policies for equality already exist. On paper. But their true power lies in how boldly we bring them to life.
To fully recover, women must move from the margins to the center, not as beneficiaries, but as architects and builders of resilience. That means giving us a seat at a table, in relief committees, building gender sensitive data into planning, and linking emergency aid with lasting empowerment.
Because recovery is not only about what we rebuild. It’s about who gets to rebuild, and whether we are given trust, the tools, and the space to lead.
When women rise, whole families and communities rise with us.
When women stand at the heart of recovery, we don’t just survive the storm, we learn to build a fairer, stronger, more resilient tomorrow for everyone.
