Each year, climate-induced disasters cost Pakistan billions of dollars and push millions into deeper poverty. Yet our policies remain stuck in a reactive cycle, waiting for the damage to occur, then scrambling with relief. This approach is not only costly but also destructive to development gains.
Prevention is smarter in every sense. It is cheaper to invest in resilient schools and hospitals than to rebuild them after destruction. Moreover, prevention saves lives and livelihoods. A bridge can be rebuilt, but lost years of education or a family’s breadwinner cannot. Similarly, prevention builds trust; governments that invest in resilience win legitimacy from citizens.
Global studies show that every $1 invested in disaster risk reduction saves $6 in future losses. The question is not whether Pakistan can afford to invest in prevention; it is whether Pakistan can afford not to.
Bangladesh offers a powerful example. The 1970 Bhola Cyclone killed up to half a million people, forcing the country to rethink disaster management. Bangladesh shifted towards long-term resilience. Through its Cyclone Preparedness Programme launched in 1972, more than 76,000 volunteers were trained to deliver early warnings using flags, megaphones, radios and now SMS alerts. Over 12,000 multipurpose cyclone shelters were built across coastal districts, designed with gender-sensitive spaces for women, children and the elderly.
By the 1990s, Bangladesh had also adopted a ‘living with floods’ strategy that combined embankments and raised roads with community preparedness. The impact has been remarkable; the 1991 cyclone killed 140,000 people, but Cyclone Bulbul in 2019 caused only around 40 deaths despite being equally intense. These preventive investments not only saved lives but also cut billions in economic losses and reduced the country’s Average Annual Loss as a share of GDP.
Nepal’s experience after the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake tells a similar story. The earthquake killed nearly 9,000 people and displaced millions, yet recovery efforts were notable because they centred on resilience and community leadership. Local Disaster Risk Management Committees were established at the smallest administrative units, the municipal wards, to map hazards, run preparedness drills and coordinate contingency plans.
Reconstruction grants were linked to earthquake-resistant building standards, spreading safer construction across villages. Women’s cooperatives ensured that rebuilding reflected real community needs, including kitchens, childcare and water access, rather than just donor priorities.
Nature-based solutions offer protection against climate-induced disasters. Ecosystems themselves are natural shields that protect us from hazards, but only if they remain intact. Mangroves buffer storm surges before they reach coastal settlements. Wetlands absorb floodwaters and slow the spread of inundation. Forests stabilise slopes and prevent landslides. When these ecosystems are healthy, they quietly reduce risks every day. When they are destroyed, people face the full force of hazards with nothing to break the impact.
Unfortunately, Pakistan is steadily erasing its own natural defences. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, mountains are blasted for marble and minerals, destabilising slopes. Deforestation weakens watersheds, while luxury hotels built directly on riverbeds narrow natural water channels and worsen floods.
We don’t need to go to the peripheries to take stock of how this is happening. Around Islamabad, farmhouses sprawl across what used to be the Rawal Lake wetlands, releasing untreated sewage into the reservoir and destroying biodiversity.
In Punjab, the Ravi riverbed hosts more than forty housing societies, many of which are now underwater. Floodplains that once slowed and absorbed water through natural vegetation were first cleared for farming and then settled on, leaving even villages once considered safe vulnerable to drowning. Deforestation across Punjab has only stripped away more of this protection.
In Sindh, Karachi’s natural drainage channels have been encroached upon by informal settlements and commercial plazas. Along the coast, mangroves that once buffered cyclones have been cut for fuelwood and land reclamation, exposing millions of people.
Climate change no doubt is causing destruction throughout the country, but a lot of the destruction is the product of reckless development that ignores ecological limits. We can’t just blame climate change and evade responsibility for our wrongdoings.
Global evidence also shows that disaster resilience is strongest when built with communities, not for them. This is a key point, yet Pakistan continues to rely on a centralised, reactive disaster management model. The 2025 superfloods show what happens when preventive investments are ignored, billions are lost, hundreds and thousands are displaced and fragile trust in governance is eroded.
Unless we decentralise disaster governance, empower communities and restore our ecosystems, the cycle of flood, relief and destruction will repeat endlessly. The government(s) must invest in prevention, make risk-informed infrastructure and early-warning systems national priorities, and protect natural buffers like mangroves, wetlands and forests.
Communities must be treated as partners, not passive victims. Governance must be decentralised so that decisions are made closer to those most at risk. Other countries in the region have shown that it is possible to bend the curve of disaster losses. Pakistan does not need to look far for success stories or for warnings. From Rawal Lake to the Ravi riverbed, from Karachi’s nalas to its mangroves, we are destroying the very ecosystems that keep us safe. Prevention is not just cheaper, it is smarter, fairer and the only path to resilience.
Opinion Article Published in The News on September 05, 2025.
