The floods didn’t just wash away our home and our livelihood they washed away our future. But through Sindh People’s Housing for Flood Affectees (SPHF) project, we have found our footing again. Today, we are rebuilding our lives with dignity, with ownership, and with the hope we thought we had lost.’ quoted Farhana Khatoon of Khairpur, a beneficiary of SPHF in Sindh.
Pakistan’s Sindh province took center stage at COP30 as it unveiled what is now recognized as the world’s largest climate-resilient housing reconstruction programme: the Sindh People’s Housing for Flood Affectees (SPHF).
Born out of the catastrophic 2022 floods that displaced more than 15 million people across Sindh, the initiative has not only rebuilt homes but also rewritten the narrative of gender and climate justice in Pakistan.
The Government of Sindh’s presentation at the COP30 side event, “Women Leading Climate Action in Sindh through SPHF,” highlighted a transformation that goes far beyond infrastructure.
It demonstrated how climate recovery can be inclusive, sustainable, and people-centered when women are placed at the forefront of the process.
SPHF CEO Khalid Mehmood Shaikh described the initiative as a global milestone in climate adaptation, noting that 2.1 million multi-hazard-resistant houses are being constructed to benefit more than 15 million people, which is more than the population of 154 countries.
He emphasized that SPHF’s strength lies in its transparent systems, robust digital backbone, strong public-private partnerships, and a firm commitment to gender equity.
Under the project, 1.5 million bank accounts have been opened for direct financial transfers, 1.45 million houses are under active construction, and 650,000 homes are already complete, with nearly 800,000 women as direct beneficiaries.
Every title deed is issued in a woman’s name, including widows, single women, elderly women, and women-headed households, making it the largest residential asset transfer to women in Pakistan’s history.
Calling this not just reconstruction but an act of justice, he said, “We are embedding resilience with dignity,” crediting the programme’s success to strong political will, global partners such as EY, KPMG, and PwC, and transparent, technology-backed systems.
The initiative mobilized USD 2 billion through partnerships with the World Bank, ADB, IsDB, and other financiers, enabling Sindh to scale from initial funding to its full reconstruction target. SPHF’s technology-driven monitoring and real-time progress verification have become a global example of transparent climate governance.
Noelle O’Brien, Director of Climate Change at the Asian Development Bank and Daouda Ben Oumar Ndiaye of the Islamic Development Bank also present at the side event recognized the project as true resilience in action.
The scale of the initiative extends beyond housing. SPHF has launched a USD 600 million WASH programme to bring clean water and sanitation to 4,000 villages and 450,000 households, ensuring climate resilience is anchored in health and community well-being.
Across Sindh, stories of transformation mirror the programme’s impact, from women like Shehar Bano, who rebuilt her home and livelihood after losing everything in the floods, to craftswomen who stitched life back together through traditional Rillis, to women like Farhana Khatoon of Khairpur who now stands outside her new climate-resilient home, finally able to dream beyond survival.
In these villages, land ownership has become a powerful tool for transformation. Women who never imagined holding property titles are now decision-makers in their homes.
Their confidence radiates through rebuilt communities from women masons in Thatta training to join the construction workforce, to families in Sukkur’s Ali Wahan Marwari village rebuilding homes with their own hands.
The SPHF model has grown so rapidly and effectively that the Government of Pakistan has mandated its expansion to Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where thousands more homes will be constructed using the same community-first and gender-responsive approach.
At COP30, Sindh’s message was clear: climate justice must be gender justice. Recovery must be rooted in dignity, ownership, and empowerment. By recognizing women not just as beneficiaries but as leaders of climate resilience, Sindh has rewritten global expectations of what post-disaster reconstruction can achieve.
As delegates in Belém, Brazil witnessed the scale, transparency, and human impact of SPHF, one idea resonated throughout the hall: Sindh has not merely rebuilt homes, it has rebuilt futures, placing resilience in the hands of those who have long carried the heaviest burdens of climate change.