Attachments
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Located on the northern shore of the Arabian Sea and extending northward to the Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountains, Pakistan encompasses 796,095 square kilometers (km2; 307,374 square miles, mi2) of diverse geography, geology, and climate. Home to 241.5 million people, Pakistan faces frequent natural and anthropogenic hazards, including floods, earthquakes, storms, landslides, and rockfalls. Major events such as the 2005 Kashmir earthquake and 2010 nationwide flooding drove the initial stages of reform in the national disaster management (DM) legal and institutional structure. Since then, the country has developed a more holistic system, led by the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), which not only leads disaster response but also promotes preparedness and disaster risk reduction (DRR).
Pakistan employs a three-tier DM system – national, provincial, and district – to coordinate emergency services and allocate resources while ensuring that each jurisdiction can prioritize the services best suited to it. With the NDMA as the national lead agency, there are Provincial Disaster Management Authorities (PDMA) in each of the four provinces – Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Punjab, and Sindh. Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) uses a “state” DM authority (SDMA), and Gilgit-Baltistan has the Gilgit-Baltistan Disaster Management Authority (GBDMA). Below this level, District Disaster Management Authorities (DDMA) handle local disaster risk management (DRM) and mobilize resources during emergencies.
Pakistan has many years of experience calling for, receiving, and managing international assistance, and it has published guidelines for how and where international humanitarians or partner governments or militaries may deliver assistance. During a disaster response, the NDMA integrates representatives from various levels of government, as well as from the military, non-governmental organizations (NGO), and United Nations (UN) system agencies to coordinate response and relief operations.
The NDMA’s National Disaster Response Plan (NDRP) outlines emergency protocols, from activating emergency operations centers (EOC) to public notifications and stockpiling relief items. The NDMA can call on the national armed forces when civilian capacities are overwhelmed and coordinates international assistance when domestic capacity is overwhelmed.
Since 2012, Pakistan has maintained a National Climate Change Policy (NCCP), updated in 2021, with the Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination (MoCC) leading federal climate initiatives and serving as the focal point for international agreements, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). As of the writing of this handbook, climate action is not fully integrated into the DM system, but many stakeholders’ work encompasses both DRR and action to address the impacts of climate change.
Numerous international agencies, NGOs, and resident UN agencies collaborate with the government on DRR and community-based programs. Key national NGO federations are the Pakistan Humanitarian Forum (PHF) and National Humanitarian Network (NHN), both of which are active in advocating for the interests of their members on the national and international scenes to ensure strong capacity and sustained coordination across DM activities. In addition, the government’s bilateral relationships, including with the United States (U.S.) and European and Asian countries, enhance Pakistan’s capacity to mitigate disaster impacts, reduce human and economic losses, and build resilience in the face of worsening hazards.