Thread by @rabiaazfar

Karachi is drowning, the countdown has begun

We fooled ourselves into thinking climate change would drown Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Gilgit Baltistan but never reach Karachi. So we stayed silent. We told ourselves the political chaos would punish the north while Sindh would be spared. Then we watched bodies float past in the floods and still clung to the delusion that we will not float. That lie will drown us. It’s a matter of time. #karachirain #Karachi

For decades, Jamaat-e-Islami, MQM, and PPP have sold us hate at election time, only to shake hands afterward and split Karachi like spoils of war. Local bodies became nothing more than a profit-sharing pact. Roads, water, garbage, transport, housing all reduced to excuses to mint money.

major donor funded projects touching Karachi and Sindh (2005–2025)

World Bank: Karachi Mobility Project (Yellow BRT) — loan USD 382m, approved 27 June 2019; estimated total cost about USD 450m. Purpose: a 21 km BRT corridor from Dawood Chowrangi to Numaish. Current status includes early market engagement and procurement.

World Bank: Competitive and Livable City of Karachi (CLICK) — loan USD 230m, approved 27 June 2019. Purpose: property tax modernization, solid waste improvements, business environment, city management. Project restructuring documentation notes delays and implementation challenges.

World Bank: Karachi Neighborhood Improvement Project (KNIP) — credit USD 86m, approved 15 June 2017. Purpose: enhance public spaces in Saddar, Korangi, Malir and improve selected admin services.

World Bank: Karachi Water and Sewerage Services Improvement Project (KWSSIP) — IBRD USD 40m, approved 27 June 2019; later extended to 2026 with disbursement updates. Purpose: improve access to safe water and KWSB performance.

World Bank: Karachi Solid Waste Emergency and Efficiency Project (SWEEP) — total USD 105m, IBRD USD 100m, approved 2020. Purpose: flood and COVID response through backbone solid waste infrastructure and operations.

ADB, AIIB, AFD, GCF: Karachi BRT Red Line — total USD 503.2m cofinanced. ADB USD 235m, AFD about USD 71.8m, AIIB about USD 71.8m, GCF USD 49m, Government of Sindh USD 75.6m. Purpose: 24.2 km Red Line corridor and operations.

World Bank: Sindh Flood Emergency Rehabilitation Project (SFERP) — IDA USD 500m, approved December 2022; additional financing USD 450m approved December 2024. Provincewide for flood damaged infrastructure and resilient housing after the 2022 floods.

World Bank: Sindh Water and Agriculture Transformation (SWAT) — about USD 292m, approved 2022. Provincewide irrigation and water productivity reforms under Sindh, with multiple canal subprojects.

World Bank: Guddu Barrage Rehabilitation (Sindh) — about USD 188m, approved 2015. Purpose: reliability and safety upgrades to a key barrage serving Sindh.

Framing and diagnostics used to justify Karachi lending included the World Bank’s 2018 City Diagnostic and Transformation Strategy highlighting fragmentation, land contestation and weak city capacity. Outcomes since then have repeatedly required restructurings and extensions.

Shame on us numb, helpless and complicit for repeatedly voting these vultures back into power. And disgrace on the international institutions that keep pouring money into Karachi, fattening the very corruption they claim to fight.

Karachi belongs to no one now. It has been handed over to mafias, swallowed by greed and crippled by incompetence and ethnicity And we, its people, are left to bleed while we stay silent.

God will have to save Karachi because its rulers never will.

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