LONDON:
Pakistan suffered a devastating flood season final yr, prompting large state compensation. Whereas the compassion behind this response is unquestionable, the way in which aid is structured could unintentionally deepen long-term vulnerabilities.
This displays what Nobel laureate James Buchanan termed the Samaritan’s dilemma – a state of affairs wherein unconditional support reduces the recipient’s incentive to forestall hurt, thereby reinforcing the very downside it seeks to unravel.
The Punjab authorities’s latest flood aid programme is a hanging instance. It provided quick, unconditional money compensation to totally cowl damages to houses, property, and livestock. The intention was each humane and political: to assist households get better rapidly from the shock and to safe public assist. Practically Rs500 billion was spent – one of many largest provincial aid efforts.
Nonetheless, such blanket compensation – if repeated flood after flood – creates expectations that the state will at all times act as the last word insurer of personal threat. That is when incentives shift counterproductively.
When support is unconditional, risk-taking behaviour will increase. It produces 4 predictable responses: First, households have much less incentive to put money into resilient housing – reminiscent of elevated foundations or sturdier buildings – as a result of they count on the federal government to pay for rebuilding. Second, households proceed dwelling in high-risk floodplains, since relocation – although pricey and disruptive – feels pointless when losses are reimbursed. Third, communities underinvest in collective mitigation measures, together with strengthening levees or implementing fundamental constructing requirements. Fourth, the federal government’s fiscal burden grows. Every flood triggers one other spherical of large payouts.
This cycle is the essence of the Samaritan’s dilemma: beneficiant state intervention weakens the very behaviours – self-protection, threat mitigation, and neighborhood preparedness – that scale back long-term losses.
Threat is a alternative and selections should have penalties. The riverine belt attracts settlers for its fertile land and financial advantages, and plenty of households have lived there for generations. However staying in a flood-prone space remains to be a acutely aware determination, and it carries duties.
Households that put money into safer building, elevated housing, or community-based mitigation efforts ought to be rewarded. Those that repeatedly ignore well-known dangers shouldn’t count on bailouts each time a flood strikes. But Pakistan is a democracy. The state can’t abandon residents throughout crises. The problem, subsequently, is to guard folks with out encouraging dependency.
Conditional support is a wiser and fairer strategy, linking aid to risk-reducing behaviour. Earlier than the following monsoon season, the federal government ought to announce that future compensation might be conditional on following fundamental security tips – easy, actionable measures that materially scale back vulnerability.
The federal government ought to difficulty these tips as quickly as potential. Not solely would this scale back materials losses, however it might additionally considerably scale back casualties and accidents throughout floods. It might additional scale back the dimensions and frequency of emergency rescue operations, that are pricey, harmful, and sometimes contain displacement and lack of life.
Conditional support, subsequently, is essentially the most accountable approach for the federal government to intervene and create the circumstances for higher long-term flood administration.
Based mostly on our area visits in flood-affected areas, we recognized three sensible measures that considerably scale back flood losses and ought to be included in these tips.
First, obligatory elevation of homes. Houses raised 15-20 ft above floor remained comparatively secure through the 2025 floods, whereas low-lying and scattered buildings suffered the worst injury. Elevation stays the simplest safety measure.
Second, organised village layouts. Scattered settlements expose every family to threat, whereas clusters of houses constructed collectively on a shared elevated platform shield the whole neighborhood.
Third, introducing a government-supported crop insurance coverage scheme. Non-public insurers can’t supply reasonably priced flood-prone agriculture protection. A subsidised public-private mannequin – the place farmers and the federal government share prices – would scale back reliance on emergency aid whereas strengthening monetary resilience.
Underneath this technique, households that ignore the rules – after receiving satisfactory discover and assist – wouldn’t qualify for full compensation in future disasters. Conditionality shouldn’t be punishment; it’s the sustainable strategy to encourage long-term security.
Some officers advocate relocating whole riverine populations, however this strategy is each unrealistic and counterproductive. Individuals will resist; prices can be prohibitive; agricultural productiveness would decline; and Punjab’s cities can’t take up a sudden inflow of individuals searching for housing and employment.
Thus, evacuation is neither possible nor fascinating. Resilient adaptation should information future coverage, and it’s far simpler to implement and monitor. By pairing compassion with accountability – by means of conditional support and safer settlement tips – we will start remodeling susceptible communities into resilient ones. Monsoon 2026 is just months away. The time to revamp our aid coverage is now.
THE WRITER IS THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF THE POLICY RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR SOUTH ASIA (PRISA), AN INDEPENDENT THINK TANK BASED IN LONDON
