Pakistan

Executive summary

This case study is part of the Diaspora Emergency Action and Coordination Platform’s (DEMAC) “Research study on diaspora humanitarian response and engagement”. Recurring floods, droughts, earthquakes and epidemics all make the humanitarian operating environment challenging in Pakistan. Ongoing unrest and conflict have an exacerbating effect. With over 10 million people in need of humanitarian assistance in 2021, the humanitarian response in Pakistan is led by the government in collaboration with the key humanitarian actors.

Diaspora organizations implement humanitarian interventions both directly as well as with partners. Almost all diaspora organizations identified were providing longer-term support to communities, working along the humanitarian-development nexus even if they did not necessarily identify it as such. Their humanitarian response is not static or limited by geographic region; rather it is dynamic and evolving, such as scaling-up in times of crises and scaling-down to revert to ongoing development-focused projects.