Almost a year after devastating floods hit Pakistan, experts are warning that much still needs to be done to prevent damage before this year's rainy season arrives

Pakistan's next monsoon season is still months away, but after the deadly floods last year aid workers and experts are warning that the country is still unprepared for the worst. "Now is the time to build up Pakistan's resilience to disaster," said Neva Khan, director of Oxfam in Pakistan. "The cost of implementing safeguards pales in comparison to the damage to lives and property [that could be caused by the monsoon]."

The monsoon season usually runs from July-September. Last year, more than 20 million people in 78 districts were affected by the worst floods in living memory. Some 2.4m hectares of standing crops and about a third of the rice planted that year were destroyed; paddy yields dropped by 38% on the previous year, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Many of those affected are yet to fully recover. In Sindh province 80,000 displaced people are still living in camps and settlements, according to the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha). "I still do not have a properly built house; it was very difficult through the winter and now I am worried about rains later this year," Muhammad Khan, a farmer, told IRIN from his village in Charsadda district in the north-western province of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa.

Efforts to help those affected by the floods are continuing. More than 2.5 million people have benefited from the construction of almost 63,700 latrines. More than 921,000 families have received hygiene kits, and 6.6 million individuals have been reached with hygiene promotion activities, Ocha reported.

The plight of people in areas where rain triggers flash floods and landslides has highlighted the need for disaster preparedness, according to the UN secretary general's special representative for disaster risk reduction, Margareta Wahlström.

Pakistan, which according to the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction is at continued risk of man-made and natural disasters, lost around $8.7bn-$10.8bn – about a third of its 2009-10 budget – to the July floods. Yet the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank estimate that an investment of only $27m in disaster risk reduction mechanisms could greatly reduce losses from future disasters.

Speaking at the end of a visit to Pakistan in February, Wahlström said there was a clear need to "build resilience to future floods, just as Pakistan embarks on the reconstruction of flood-affected areas following the devastating floods of July 2010".

Local observers say there is limited evidence that this lesson has been learned. For example, many of the houses hastily reconstructed by victims are built on the same lines as those washed away earlier. Residents in areas such as Swat Valley in Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa, where roads and bridges were badly damaged, claimed the same holds true for infrastructure. "The thing is we built many of the roads ourselves, with some help from military personnel, after the floods, using what materials were available. We needed the roads to move relief supplies to villages, and couldn't afford to wait for the government to take action," said Abdul Sulaiman, from the town of Kabal in Swat.

In February, relatively light rain damaged around 100 houses in the southwestern province of Baluchistan, including the capital Quetta. "Many people have been left without a roof over their heads," Naseem Ahmed Lehri, the commissioner for Quetta Division, told the media at the time.

Ahmed Kamal, spokesman for the National Disaster Management Authority, told IRIN the government's planning commission was "undertaking post-flood reconstruction". The policy was to "build back better" by putting in place disaster-resistant housing and other structures, he said.