The water crisis in our dear homeland threatens to worsen food concerns. Perilous climate happenings are becoming more common due to climate change. Distressing flooding ravaged the country in 2022.
Our country is also open to disasters such as earthquakes and droughts. Because of such events, hundreds of thousands of people are generally in need of emergency water and sanitation help. Climate and conflict-driven internal relocation and movement add to the problems. Even some health centers and schools lack proper water and sanitation arrangements.
According to UNICEF, seventy percent depend on bacterially dirtied water. As a result, around 53,000 Pakistani children under the age of five die from diarrhea every year.
Kids who undergo frequent sessions of diarrhea are likely to fall behind in school or even drop out completely. The diarrheal disease can also cause stunting, which presently upsets nearly 44 percent of children in Pakistan. Stunting prevents children from growing and developing, as they should.
Our National Water Policy, approved in 2018, has numerous important execution challenges. Related issues are water infrastructure, institutional capacity, and political will. One of the most demanding topics is the lack of adequate water storage capacity, which leads to a shortage of water both in times of drought and floods. The inefficient and outdated irrigation systems that waste a significant amount of water intensify the shortage.
The National Water Policy calls for significant reforms in the management of water resources, including the regulation of groundwater extraction and the promotion of water conservation measures. However, these reforms may prove out of favor, particularly among prominent agricultural and industrial lobbies, and may thus face political resistance.
We have launched several initiatives to develop food security and address the country’s water calamity. These include investments in irrigation substructures, care for smallholder farmers, and the building of new dams and reservoirs. However, we need to do much more if Pakistan is to meet the challenges of its rapidly growing population, unsympathetic geography, and climate defenselessness.
The lack of transparency and accountability is one of the key issues in water governance. There have been reports about corruption and cronyism in water distribution in several parts of the country, mainly in the context of large-scale irrigation schemes. These practices not only weaken the well-organized use of water resources but also worsen social and economic inequalities. Often small farmers and relegated communities are without suitable access to water.
We should focus on firming up the institutions responsible for water governance by providing them with the essential resources and training to carry out their responsibilities excellently. A new focus on investing in water infrastructure, including sanitation, is a need of the hour as well. Public investments should complement civil society efforts.
In effect, decentralization is essential. Pakistan’s provincial governments should take the lead in executing initiatives to improve water storage, maintenance, reconditioning, and reuse as best suited to their needs.
The requirement is to use technology to build trust and ensure transparency. Provinces should share water-flow data automatically. Databased evidence should guide decisions regarding water allocation, use, and management.
We need to go beyond oratory and address water as a national security issue. If citizens treat water security as an essential part of economic security and maintain that political parties promise water sector reforms and investment as part of their election campaigns, it could create an opportunity to hold those parties answerable once they come to power.
Our input to global greenhouse gas emissions is less than one percent, so our helplessness to climate impacts is excessively high. Access to adequate climate finance and support would help Pakistan to address water challenges successfully, improve its resilience, and add to global efforts to fight climate change and its antagonistic effects.
