Motts to help reduce disaster risks in Pakistan

The appointment comes from the Climate and Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), which is funded by the Department for International Development.

The province was affected by catastrophic floods in 2010. Since then the PDMA has been managing the post-disaster reconstruction programme. As part of this programme, ‘model villages’ are being developed to replace those destroyed by the floods. They include schools, houses, health centres and other community infrastructure. The government of Punjab is proposing to develop similar villages as exemplars for reconstruction in other flood-affected communities. These will show how such villages can be better planned, built to higher standards and with improved community infrastructure and facilities.

Mott MacDonald is providing practical planning tools and guidance, including reviewing and reporting on sample model village plans, as well as offering recommendations on how to improve the resilience of spaces and structures to future extreme climate events.

The consultancy will also provide a hazard map for Punjab province, reconstruction guidelines in English and Urdu and a policy guidance paper for the Government of Punjab.

Mott MacDonald’s project director Simon Howarth said: “Pakistan currently has few guidelines for disaster risk reduction in the construction sector. We hope the project will enable the country to establish effective policy and give rural poor and local decision makers the knowledge needed to reduce the risk of a repeat of the catastrophe brought by last year’s floods.”

“CDKN responded to a request for support from the Government of Pakistan to ‘build back better’ after last year’s devastating floods,” said Ali Tauqeer Sheikh, CDKN’s Asia director, based at independent non-governmental organisation LEAD Pakistan. “Not only is this a strategic project for Pakistan, it is also a test-case for climate compatible development that promises to offer lessons for the international community dealing with adaptation.”

The project is due for completion in March 2012.

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