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INTRODUCTION
Storms and heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan have caused widespread flooding and landslides across the country. According to the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), up to 33 million people have been affected by the floods since midJune 2022 and a total of 85 districts have been labelled by the Government of Pakistan as ‘calamity-hit’, as of 17 October 2022.¹ According to the NDMA Daily Situation Report No.126, 24 districts in Sindh province are calamity-hit and an estimated total of 14,563,770 people are affected by the floods.² Besides that, 1.9 million houses are reported to be damaged in Sindh province alone. However, the number of temporarily displaced persons (TDPs) were yet to be confirmed.
Given the number of calamity-hit districts and the number of affected people, IOM's Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) decided to roll out its Baseline Assessment. This was done following coordination and approval from the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) Sindh. The purpose of the Baseline Assessment is to map out the estimated number of TDPs and returning TDPs at union council level, while obtaining a master list of villages with displacement and returns to guide both humanitarian and recovery efforts. As a start, IOM deployed its Baseline Assessment across the top 5 districts reporting the highest displacement in Sindh province. These districts are Khairpur, Larkana, Dadu, Umer Kot and Mirpur Khas. The Baseline Assessment was thus carried out across all 289 union councils that exist under these 5 targeted districts.
METHODOLOGY
The Baseline Assessment was conducted at key informant level through Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), Direct Observation and Direct Interviews with Key Informants (mainly union council government officials) as they were able to estimate displacement and return figures at union council level. Registration lists, aid distribution lists and other records of displaced populations were utilised wherever available.
Information was triangulated with other key informants such as religious leaders, village leaders, TDPs, health workers and teachers, and cross checked through the direct observation of DTM enumerators.
It is important to note that further verification is needed at village level, as the Baseline Assessment is done at a broader union council level. The training of enumerators was held on 25 September 2022 in both Sukkur and Hyderabad, and data collection was carried out from 26 September to 2 October 2022.
Following this exercise, DTM is planning to roll out its Community Needs Identification Tool (CNIT). Data for this exercise will mainly be collected through focus group discussions comprising of TDPs.