Our children.

MUCH has been made of the billions of dollars in donor pledges recently secured by our government during the International Conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan held in Geneva. It is regrettable, however, that compared to the attention the event received, there seems to be very little concern for the people it was actually held for. Consider, for example, a recent news report citing a United Nations Children's Fund warning that up to 4m children are still living in great peril next to contaminated and stagnant floodwater that, months later, refuses to drain out from some of the districts that were worst-affected by last year's terrible monsoon. Unicef also says that the incidence of acute respiratory infections has skyrocketed in the flood-stricken areas, while the number of children identified as suffering from severe, acute malnutrition has nearly doubled between July and December as compared to 2021. Unicef estimates that about 1.5m children are in need of life-saving nutrition interventions.

Unicef's country representative believes that 'Nearly 10m girls and boys are still in...