Remarks by Julien Harneis, UN Resident Coordinator in Pakistan

Remarks by Julien Harneis, UN Resident Coordinator in Pakistan at a Member State Case Study Event 13 April 2023 on the contribution of the Resident Coordinator System to the 2022 Pakistan floods. 

The devastating rains and floods of last year has been a hydra headed challenge, needing a humanitarian response, development action and climate change adaptation. The scale of the devastation had demanded a whole of society response led by the government.

The reforms of the United Nations development system gave me, as RC, and my small team the tools to bring together all relevant parts of the United Nations, the agencies in country, non-resident agencies, headquarters, the General Assembly, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change as well as members states and the International Financial Institution.

One year before the floods, we had through our new type of Cooperation Framework, and a nationwide consultation, already identified that the Triple Planetary Crisis was an existential threat to the Indus Basin River system and therefore to Pakistan. This had to be one of the UNs five priorities. So, when the rains started the UN support saw this from the very beginning as a direct result of climate change, needing humanitarian action, reconstruction and adaptation and needing national and international coordination.

From the first day our messaging on climate change connected seamlessly with that of the Secretary General, it helped us to position support to Pakistan at the General Assembly and the later at the 27th Conference of Parties.  The closer relationship between the Secretary General and his Resident Coordinator made for fluid communications in preparing these events. The result has been a more sustained international attention to the needs of Pakistan.

The UN development reform has reinforced the understanding that the RC is the one stop shop for all UN support in country or outside.  A good friend in government described the RCO as the 911, available 24/7, bringing together all parts of the UN to get solutions, adding that he never knew which bits of the UN were making it happen, but is just all came together. And this is how it has to be.

The Resident Coordinators Team played a small but critical part in humanitarian coordination, our staff in Islamabad all four provinces switching into humanitarian coordination, whilst OCHA surged in staff and converted its advisory team into an office. RCO staff ran field coordination in the heart of the flooded districts, and set up the Flash Appeal Event and then later the Flood Response Plan launch, allowing OCHA and the Humanitarian Country Team to focus on the substance of the plan and response. 

In the same way the UN Information Centre, which now report to the RC, provided the spokesperson and media coordination working in tight cooperation the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Having an Economist as a standard part of the team gave me the capacity to tightly coordinate with International Financial Institutions, and in particular the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. This was vital, as their financing of humanitarian activity mainly through government was as important as all the funds going through the UN and NGOs that make up the Humanitarian Country Team. So, understanding their activities was essential to better target the work of the humanitarian organisations.

For the reconstruction UNDP brilliantly fulfilled the integrator role that the reform envisaged, pulling together the UN family first for the Post Disaster Needs Assessment and then Resilient Recovery Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Framework (4RF). This brought coherence to the UNs work with our partners: the Asian Development Bank, European Union and the World Bank. 

And as I mentioned at the start, we saw this crisis as part of the long-term challenge of adapting to Climate Change.  We had therefore already prepared with and for the government, with cross party support, an adaptation initiative for the Indus basin, the Living Indus Initiative. This was validated by cabinet and ready to be used from the first days of the floods. 

I have presented the highlights and the main positive lessons, however there is more to be learnt including what to improve and we are working on a more detailed case study to be ready in June.

To put all this work into context the small investment in the Resident Coordinator office facilitated the creation and implementation of a $816 million Flood Response Plan and a Resilient Recovery Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Framework of $9 billion.

Finally, whilst thanking all member states for their generous contributions, it is important to note that the flood continues to have terrible consequences for people in Pakistan, and today we are seeing an increase in Severe Acute Malnutrition in children under 5, that needs your international support and solidarity, either directly to the Government of Pakistan or through the multilateral system.