COMMUNITIES and the nearest administrative tier are considered the linchpin of any disaster management system. Pakistan’s National Disaster Management (NDM) Act, 2010, focuses on the disaster management architecture and delineates the functions and powers of disaster management authorities at the national, provincial and district level. National and provincial authorities have been assigned a macro- and meso-level role, such as policy formulation, coordination, communication, providing technical assistance, and monitoring. The district disaster management authorities (DDMAs) have a pivotal role in grassroots operations.
If disaster strikes, the community is the first victim as well as the first saviour. The next line of defence is the local administration, ie, the DDMA under the law. Under the NDM Act, the DDMA’s structure assigns a leadership role to the local council head at the district level. Authority members include the deputy commissioner, district police officer and district officers of health and other departments. In contrast to 2022, when local governments were not in place during the floods, elected local bodies now are functional. It is time that district chairpersons took the lead in developing local-level........