Natural Disasters, Relief Aid, and Household Vulnerability in Pakistan: Evidence from a Pilot Survey in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Abstract

Based on a pilot survey, we analyze the damages caused by floods in Pakistan, 2010, the istribution of aid, and the extent of recovery at he household level. With regard to the nature of damages, we show that flood damages had both between-village and within-village variation, and damages to houses, land (crops), livestock, and other business assets were not highly correlated. In the distribution of aid from outside, we again find substantial between-village and within-village variation - the aid distribution across villages appeared well-targeted toward the severely affected villages, while aid within villages was targeted toward households with larger house damages, but not toward households with larger damages to land, crop, or other assets. The positive aid response to house damages and the negative aid response to the initial wealth level were found but the marginal response of aid to these characteristics was not large. With regard to the recovery from flood damages, we find that aid recipients did not show higher or lower recovery than non-recipients, especially for house damages, which could be due to mixing of a recovery-promoting effect of aid and a selection effect of aid toward households that have more difficulty in recovery. We also show that households who had initially fewer assets and hit by larger flood damages had more difficulty in recovery.natural disaster, relief distribution, resilience, Pakistan