The flooding in Pakistan is reaching horrific proportions and is actually being considered “the greatest humanitarian crisis in recent history with more people affected than the South-East Asian tsunami and the recent earthquakes in Kashmir and Haiti combined” (telegraph.co.uk). With this crisis hitting epic proportions both in a humanitarian sense as well as in a financial sense. Leaders are at a crunch point and must take action in order to get Pakistan moving towards a recovery plan. But it is here, with the leaders, that we find one of the biggest problems with the whole situation Yousuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan's prime minister, “left to deal with the crisis while his president, Asif Ali Zardari, toured Britain and France, said the floods would set Pakistan back years” (telegraph.co.uk). Donors and charitable foundations are turning their backs on Pakistan because “its government cannot be trusted by anyone” (bbc news). No one knows where donated money will actually end up, therefore governments and organizations are hesitant to give money without seeing the security of a Trust Fund put into place. Such “a fund would not just monitor the cash, but help the government put together a non-political, neutral reconstruction effort” (bbc news) which would, in theory, make sure that the funds be put to good use. Pakistani leaders are in arms about this proposed Trust Fund, saying they feel as though their sovereignty is being threatened when in reality the little sovereignty they currently possess is diminishing by the hour due to their lack of response to the crisis thus far. The solution to this disaster will only come when subject/government and organization/government trust has been established.
Works Sited
Neil, Tweedie. “Pakistan Floods: The Disaster is the Worst in the Uns History”.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/7935485/Pakistan-floods- disaster-is-the-worst-in-the-UNs-history.html. Published: 6:07PM BST 09 Aug 2010.
“How to fix Flood-hit Pakistan”. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11200179. Published: 06 September 2010.
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