Case study: The role of the reformed UN Resident Coordinator system in responding to Pakistan’s 2022 floods

Devastating floods in Pakistan affected 33 million people in 2022, with 8 million displaced, 13,000 injured and 1,700 killed – the latest in a series of increasingly frequent and severe climate-induced disasters.

This case study explores how the empowered UN Resident Coordinator (RC) system was invaluable for responding to the complex crisis. Thanks to strengthened coordination capacities, including at the sub-national level the RC Office offered support to enable a swift humanitarian response, to augment the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)’s limited in-country resources in the immediate aftermath. The RC also enabled a focus on a collaborative approach with international financial institutions (IFIs), including for long-term recovery. The Living Indus Initiative, which emerged from the strategic prioritization for Pakistan’s UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework led by the RC, became the blueprint for a long-term approach, ensuring that UN efforts went beyond a mere response to a one-off disaster.