21 December 2010
U.S., Pakistan Working Together to Rebuild, Advance Services
Washington — The United States and Pakistan are working together on several new projects to help rebuild and improve agriculture, health, transportation and other services in Pakistan as that country continues to recover from devastating floods.
In eight hard-hit districts of Sindh province, a $15 million U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) project begun December 13 will help farmers cultivate sunflowers as a cash crop, according to a U.S. Embassy Islamabad press release. The farmers usually plant wheat, but standing water prevented most of the planting this year and the farmers were at risk of losing the growing season. The program will allow Pakistani agencies to provide farmers with training, seed, fertilizer and help in preparing the soil, as well as help in reaching buyers who will purchase the seeds and process them into sunflower oil. Sarah Parvez, a USAID economic growth officer quoted in the press release, said the sunflower project “will jump-start the local economy by creating direct and indirect employment and increasing farmers’ incomes.”
In another project, announced December 20 in Islamabad by the U.S. Embassy, more than 1,500 of Pakistan’s lady health workers in the badly flooded areas of Punjab and Sindh provinces are receiving basic equipment kits for their work in providing essential health care in their communities. The kits, which the embassy said are “part of the United States’ continuing support for Pakistan’s flood relief and recovery efforts,” include blood pressure monitors, scales, thermometers, blankets, tents and basic furniture so that the workers can set up small clinics called health houses. The kits will be delivered by USAID’s Family Advancement for Life and Health, or FALAH, program, which provides educational materials and services to encourage early prenatal care, birth spacing and proper postnatal care for mothers and newborns.
In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the U.S. government is providing help for transportation with prefabricated material to build eight bridges. The bridges, though lightweight and easily transportable, can support heavy truck traffic, and they will replace bridges destroyed by the floods. Pakistan’s National Disaster Management Agency, which will put the bridges in place, received 12 of the prefabricated bridges from the U.S. government earlier in the crisis.
In 11 districts in Southern Punjab, the U.S. and Pakistani governments have launched a five-year program to improve municipal services for residents, including access to clean water, better roads and improved health facilities. Under the program, USAID has pledged $10 million over five years and will provide technical assistance as well. Many of the districts targeted in this program were severely affected by the floods and are indentified as among the most underserved in the province, the embassy said in a December 19 press release. The program is funded with monies allocated by the U.S. Congress under the Kerry-Lugar-Berman act.
“USAID’s partnership with Punjab will help improve basic service delivery in a transparent way,” said USAID Pakistan Mission Director Andrew Sisson. “The program will help the government become more responsive to community priorities, and give people a chance to be a real part of the decisionmaking process.”
The flooding, which began in late July, caused 1,800 deaths and affected 21 million people, making it a greater disaster than the 2010 Haiti earthquake, 2005 Pakistan earthquake and 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami combined, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has said. At the height of the disaster, one-fifth of Pakistan was under water and thousands of hectares of cropland were destroyed. The United States has committed more than $500 million to flood recovery and relief efforts in addition to humanitarian airlifts and rescue missions by the U.S. military.
Earlier in December, U.S. and Pakistani officials marked the end of the U.S. military’s humanitarian operations after four months of assisting in flood rescue and relief efforts. Relief flights began July 31 when Pakistan’s government requested U.S. assistance; by the final flight on November 30, U.S. helicopters and aircraft had delivered almost 12 million kilograms (26.5 million pounds) of relief supplies and 436,000 halal meals and had rescued 40,000 people from the floods, an embassy press release said.
At a ceremony December 2 at Ghazi Aviation Base, Pakistani and U.S. officials thanked the Pakistani and American pilots and crews that ran the operation. “Here, we stand in the presence of true heroes,” said U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron P. Munter. “I salute the Pakistani and United States military forces who have worked tirelessly, shoulder to shoulder, under extreme adverse conditions to help millions of Pakistanis.”
U.S. Army Brigadier General Michael Nagata, deputy commander of the office that represents the U.S. military in Pakistan, called the operation “a matter of life and death for countless people.” And Pakistani army Lieutenant General Asif Yasin Malik said, “This was not the beginning and it was not the end; this is a continuation of the U.S.-Pakistan relationship.”
(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://www.america.gov)
Photo Gallery: U.S. Continues to Help Pakistan’s Flood Victims