An Intuitive Analysis of the Impacts of Floods on Achieving MDGS in Pakistan

The aim of the study is to analyse the impacts of catastrophic floods of 2010 on achieving Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Pakistan. Since 2006, Pakistan has been facing many obstacles in its way to achieve the MDGs, stemming from rise in insurgency, electricity crisis, a sudden meltdown of the global economy in 2008, along with a sharp rise in oil and food prices earlier in that year. The floods in 2010, have destroyed lives, houses, croplands and road infrastructure, causing enormous suffering and damages across an area the size of Italy. These damages have put the country to a state from where it may take decades to recoup. It has been estimated that approximately 20 million people in 78 districts in Pakistan have been affected. Moreover, 2,000 people died, cropped areas of 2 million hector and 2 million houses were also damaged. Standing crops, animal farms, livestock the major sources of income for rural families, have been destroyed causing further rise in the incidence of Poverty. Similarly, there is also likelihood that the destruction caused to schools, hospital, other infrastructure will also negatively affects the Pakistan’s performance regarding Health and Education related MDG indicators. Moreover, recent floods 2011 in Sindh will also have heavy toll on the economy and further aggravate the situation in achieving of MDGs in Pakistan. The study found that the impacts of disastrous flood were more severe in those districts which were already lagging behind in achieving MDGs.