My partners and I have attempted to answer both questions on a website we’ve put together on reconstruction and economic recovery in flood-damaged Pakistan –
http://www.pakrenewal.com

Journalists and their editors or producers are not good at covering complex systems. Pakistan, even before the floods, was an intensely complex system. To the journalist there’s the US-Pak military aid story, the Afghan war story, the terrorist attacks story, the government corruption story, and then for a few days, the flood and relief story. All are usually covered as separate from one another and the editors limit how much space to give any one country or crisis. Pakistan simply has too many crises and often looks like mission impossible.

Up to seven million people with homes destroyed or damaged as winter approaches should be front page news. But we’re more likely to see Lindsay Lohan’s latest sad exploits, than any productive coverage on the aftermath of the floods and the effort to rebuild. The excellent scholar on the Middle East, Juan Cole, offered his analysis of why for the media, “The Great Pakistani Deluge Never Happened”. http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175292/

Our web site – http://www.pakrenewal.com — is our effort to provide a comprehensive set of links to resources for flood situation assessments, news, funding sources, reconstruction, economic recovery, and appropriate technology. In addition we discuss strategies for reconstruction and recovery and are opening a public forum.

In parallel we are in process of forming a joint venture with a Pakistani firm to build a model village with sustainable approaches to post-flood reconstruction and economic recovery. We’ll do our best to make some news worth covering.