LocationsTurning the Tide: How UNDP’s Core Funding Enabled Pakistan’s Flood Recovery
May 13, 2025
When the Waters Receded, the Challenges Remained
In June 2022, Pakistan faced a natural disaster of unprecedented scale.
Monsoon rains — six times heavier than usual — turned entire regions into vast inland seas. One-third of the country was submerged. Over 33 million people’s lives were upended, with over one thousand casualties, eight million displaced overnight, and around ten million plunged into poverty.
The financial cost? A staggering US$30 billion in losses and damages.
For families like Shamma’s in Dadu, Sindh, the flood didn’t just disrupt their lives — it was a complete erasure of life as they knew it.
“We took our livestock and fled,” she recalled. “When the water receded, we returned, hoping to rebuild. But everything was gone — our crops, our homes, our entire way of life,” she said.
“For weeks, we had no income, no food, no support. We slept in makeshift tents, unsure how we would survive the next day.”Shamma from Dadu
This is where UNDP stepped in.
Core Funding: The Difference Between Waiting and Acting
When disasters strike, swift and efficient response can make all the difference. When floods hit, Pakistan was already grappling with economic and political uncertainty, and the lingering impact of COVID-19. Institutions struggled to keep pace.
UNDP didn’t wait.
We acted immediately, deploying core funding to kickstart early recovery in two of the worst-hit districts, Dadu in Sindh and Kachhi in Balochistan.
With an initial investment of $500,000 from core resources, UNDP worked with local partners to deliver rapid, life-saving support, reaching over 13,000 flood-affected individuals. Hundreds of families received cash grants that helped them rebuild their homes and businesses, with a focus on supporting women-headed households and persons with disabilities.
The cash-for-work programmes provided income support while communities restored essential community infrastructure like latrines, water supply systems, and hand pumps, ensuring hygienic sanitation and improved access to clean water. Village organizations and local groups were mobilized, ensuring that recovery was community-led and sustainable.
For families like Shamma’s, this meant they could buy food, repair their homes, and restart their lives.
“The cash grant allowed us to rebuild a small shelter. My husband found work in the cash-for-work program, which meant we didn’t go hungry.”Shamma from Dadu
Core as a Seed Investment: Mobilizing Larger Resources
UNDP acted immediately because of its flexible core funding, which served as a seed investment for rapid recovery, made it easier to show results, and encouraged international donors to contribute.
Successfully building upon these initial interventions, UNDP scaled up its recovery effort, including addressing long-term resilience. In support of the government effort, UNDP played a key role, alongside the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, and the EU, in developing Pakistan’s Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA) and the Resilient Recovery, Rehabilitation, and Reconstruction Framework (4RF). These frameworks became the blueprint for the country’s recovery and future climate preparedness, paving the way for $10.9 billion in pledges at the 2023 International Conference in Geneva on Climate Resilient Pakistan.
Why We Must Keep the Momentum
Two years after the devastating flood, the waters might have receded, but the struggle for millions of people continues.
Climate disasters, their frequency and intensity, are no longer isolated events but an ongoing reality to which must adapt. Without sustained investments, especially in building shock-proof, resilient communities, future crises will only deepen existing vulnerabilities and erase hard-won recovery gains.
This is how UNDP, the Government of Pakistan and development partners, with the catalytic role of UNDP’s core investment to demonstrate immediate needs and effective solutions, launched the multi-donor, flagship Flood Recovery Programme (FRP) — to transition from emergency relief to long-term resilience-building. The programme focuses on a set of integrated and holistic responses — restoring homes and infrastructure, rebuilding communities with disaster-resilient housing and public services, and ensuring that families can recover their livelihoods. Strengthening the government’s capacity to respond is another critical aspect, equipping local service providers to anticipate and respond more effectively to future crises. Disaster resilience and environmental protection remain central, ensuring that communities are better prepared for the next disaster before it strikes.
A family outside their newly built climate resilient home in Quetta, Balochistan.
So far, over 272,000 people, including 132,000 women, have benefited from recovery efforts across eight flood-affected districts. Yet the needs remain enormous, and more must be done to ensure that communities do not face the same devastation again.
Why Core Funding Matters More Than Ever
The global cost of climate disasters now stands at $300 billion annually, and this figure is expected to triple by 2030. By then, the world will experience an estimated 560 disasters per year — more than one disaster per day. For a country like Pakistan, which ranks among the top 10 most climate-vulnerable nations but contributes less than 1% of global emissions, this is an existential threat.
Without sustained, flexible core funding, response efforts will remain slow and reactive, rather than rapid and preventive. The next extreme weather event can push millions back into poverty, and each time, the window for recovery will shrink. Resilience today means stronger, better prepared communities tomorrow, and fewer lives disrupted when the next disaster inevitably comes.
This Is the Moment to Invest in Resilience
Waiting until the next crisis unfolds will only deepen vulnerabilities and will recovery even harder. As UNDP marks 60 years of global impact, Pakistan’s story serves as a warning and a call to action. The choice is clear: invest now in building resilience or risk undoing decades of progress when the next shock inevitably comes.
For Shamma and millions like her, the difference is profound.
“UNDP didn’t just give us aid,” she said.
“UNDP gave us hope.”
