BEYOND DONOR COMPLIANCE: INSTITUTIONAL BARRIERS, COMMUNITY CO-REGULATION, AND ENVIRONMENTAL REFORM IN PAKISTAN'S HUMANITARIAN SECTOR

Abstract

Humanitarian operations produce significant environmental harm yet operate largely outside ecological accountability frameworks. This paper examines environmental governance in Pakistan's humanitarian sector. It draws on qualitative evidence from six senior INGO practitioners. Using thematic analysis, five interconnected governance failures are identified. These cover legal exemptions enabling regulatory absence, donor-substituted compliance, and underutilised community co-regulation. Technology adoption is constrained by fragmentation. An emergency mindset treats sustainability as expendable. The findings show that governance failure is structurally produced, not incidental. Donor conditionality dominates compliance behaviour while domestic legal frameworks remain ecologically irrelevant. Community co-regulation, including faith-based framing, sustains environmental standards where state and donor systems are absent. The paper advances community co-regulation as a primary governance mechanism in fragile contexts. Three reforms are proposed. These are removing legal exemptions, establishing a Humanitarian Environmental Advisory Board, and embedding pre-deployment environmental screening.