‘Resilience starts at home, and ensures homes are safe, affordable and hazard-resilient’. This is the theme of the 2026 International Day of Disaster Risk Reduction.
The day is meant to encourage governments, communities and individuals to understand and anticipate risks, improve preparedness and reduce disaster-related losses of life, livelihoods and infrastructure through pre-agreed anticipatory action, including pre-agreed financing.
The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR 2015-2030) provides guidance on understanding disaster risk, strengthening disaster risk governance, investing in disaster risk reduction for resilience, and enhancing disaster preparedness for effective response and to ‘build back better’. SFDRR calls for preventing new disaster risks, reducing existing ones, and building overall resilience.
Since 2015, in line with SFDRR, 128 countries have developed multi-hazard early warning systems, and average disaster-related mortality per 100,000 population has declined by 65 per cent. Still, disasters cost humanity and ecosystems over $2.3 trillion a year. From 2016 to 2025, disasters affected an average of 100 million people each year.
Pakistan is among 128 countries with early warning systems, a National Disaster Risk Reduction Strategy (NDRRS 2025-2030), a National Anticipatory Action Strategy (NAAS 2026-2030) and other actions to protect people and infrastructure. But a lot more needs to be done, since Pakistan continues to stand at risk of all kinds of disasters, from cryosphere hazards, glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs), to landslides, flash floods, riverine floods, cloudbursts, erratic rains, heatwaves, cyclones and droughts that impact the economy, infrastructure, lives, livelihoods, agriculture, land use, health and education, and above all, traditional and non-traditional security priorities.
Climate change is further increasing the country’s vulnerability and risks that reportedly reverse development gains. To make development risk-sensitive, Pakistan needs to prioritise financing for preparedness and anticipatory action to protect its development gains through its own resources, as global commitments from the UNFCCC process, multi-donors, bilateral donors and development partners fell short of delivering what is needed.
Looking to domestic resources, Pakistan needs a humanitarian architecture ‘reset’ through power-shifting, rather than simply allocating costs to certain budget heads. Shifting power to local humanitarian leadership, with a key role for women, seems mandatory so vulnerable communities can define, decide, and control resources before disasters hit.
Adequately funded community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) should be backed by scaled-up, institutionalised anticipatory action in line with the National Anticipatory Action Strategy (NAAS) 2026-2030. The ‘reset’ refers to rationalising public finance through the Public Finance Management (PFM) system, wherein debt servicing gets the lion’s share of federal expenditure, followed by defence, federal administration and development allocations, leaving aside some amount for emergencies.
The budget should include a clear line for ‘finance for preparedness/anticipatory action, including pre-agreed finance’ against climatic and natural hazards and other disasters to retain development gains. The NAAS 2026-2030 calls for scaling up risk-sensitive disaster readiness and institutionalising a disaster risk management (DRM) system so that pre-agreed financial resources are available against triggers and forecast-based anticipatory action.
The punchline of the FY2026-2027 budget reveals that federal development spending is on the lower ebb, allocations for water-resources development and the climate change divisions fell, and climate-tagged expenditures dropped substantially, though climate-tagged revenue reportedly increased. Crosphere is not separately mentioned in any federal budgetary scheme.
If we analyse the budget through the lens of disasters, we find that preparedness gets some prominence amid allocations for response, recovery, rehabilitation, and reconstruction. Disaster allocations (response vs preparedness) show a positive trend that prioritises preparedness. We still need to shift from addressing consequences after a flood to financing risk reduction and anticipatory action before the disaster hits.
Currently, Pakistan’s PFM has three kinds of financing cushions: tagged projects, allocation for natural hazards from the emergency portfolio as contingency (Rs20 billion), and dedicated disaster funds available on an as-and-when-required basis. The project finance, which is a large chunk, is for targeted projects, whereas the latter two are too small to support anticipatory action. The tagged expenditure across ministries is not a substitute for pre-arranged financing that can be released when a forecast threshold is reached.
The 3Ds (Debt, Defence, Disasters) ‘reset’ in PFM needs to balance natural, national and debt security by making climate and disaster-risk financing a fiscal priority alongside debt and defence.
National and global assessments acknowledge that climate change impacts and reduced development spending alone do not explain the reversal of Pakistan’s development gains. Recurring disasters, macroeconomic instability, weak public services, and underinvestment in resilience add to the tally; consequently, each disaster causes losses and damages to infrastructure and household assets faster than they can be rebuilt.
The World Bank also links reversals to weak growth, economic shocks and repeated disasters that drive rising poverty. Budget 2026-27’s tagged allocations for climate change and disasters are encouraging steps, but they are neither adequate nor sustainable for dedicated adaptation, preparedness and anticipatory finance, as their implementation is not institutionalised to prevent climatic hazards before they hit.
The next ‘reset’ should be a shift in provincial budget trends, which, though currently recognising climate and disaster risks, but the allocations (2026-2027) do not specify how much money is available for anticipatory financing for preparedness before a forecast hazard strikes. Climate spending, rescue capacity and reconstruction must be distinguished from financing anticipatory action and preparedness in line with the four pillars of SFDRR 2015-2030.
The budget speeches of provincial finance ministers/chief ministers acknowledge their provinces’ vulnerability to natural hazards and disasters. However, most provinces’ budget documents rarely show budgetary allocations for preparedness, anticipatory action and climate adaptation as separate budget lines.
The budget analyses indicate that the provincial governments do recognise the importance of making anticipatory financing visible. But they lack instruments to change the already formatted provincial financial management (PFM) along agreed budget lines, leaving less space for entry points for ‘anticipatory action’ and ‘adaptation financing’, as the relevant government officials fear that in the absence of a laid-down mechanism, they may be questioned for spending on these budget lines.
The authorities need to understand, with a ‘reset’ mindset, that spending on better preparedness against all kinds of disasters can ensure risk-sensitive development and resilience at a lower cost than disaster-led losses and damages. Existing budget lines, such as environmental investment, disaster funds, rescue services, response, rehabilitation and reconstruction, fall under verified heads in provincial budgets.
Provincial governments should take a proactive approach and establish a comparable, separately disclosed allocation for forecast-triggered anticipatory action. The cost of only one disaster (floods 2022) was estimated at $14.9 billion in damage, $15.2 billion in economic losses, and at least $16.3 billion in resilient recovery needs. Sindh accounted for nearly 70 per cent of damage and losses, followed by Balochistan, KP and Punjab. Waiting for more disasters will cost us even more. Investing in preparedness, anticipatory action and adaptation will protect more lives, livelihoods and infrastructure.
The budgetary allocations for provincial departments in the 2026-2027 fiscal year are much larger than explicitly labelled climate and preparedness allocations. Climate spending is spread across irrigation, agriculture, forestry, water, local government and disaster-management departments, making it hard to verify adequacy, additionality, and results.
Provinces need a serious ‘reset’ to connect separate budget lines to trigger-based, pre-agreed finance. Each province should disclose separate provisions for prevention, preparedness, anticipatory action, response and recovery; protect an early-action financing window; and publish forecast thresholds, funds-disbursement authority, and district delivery arrangements.
Preparedness needs an annual budget line; anticipatory action needs that money to be spent when the warning arrives, and the trigger is reached. I insist on this ‘reset’ as a humanitarian and development professional because financing determines a nation’s resilience to vulnerabilities and disasters. Remember that disasters repeatedly destroy public investment, household losses recycle poverty, human-development losses hit development gains, water and cryosphere risks threaten the development base, and fiscal stress and climate vulnerability strengthen each other.
The vicious cycle works like this: high debt service reduces preventive investment, increasing disaster losses, requiring more emergency borrowing and perpetuating even higher debt service. So the financing must be risk-sensitive.
The writer is an Islamabad-based policy analyst. He is currently the deputy executive director (policy) at SDPI, Islamabad and can be reached at: shafqat@sdpi.org
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