Pakistan gets pledges of US$8.57b for flood recovery
PAKISTAN has received pledges of aid totalling US$8.57 billion for its flood recovery, its information minister Marriyum Aurangzeb said on Monday (Jan 9).
Officials from some 40 countries, as well as private donors and international financial institutions, met in Geneva as Islamabad sought support in what was expected to be a major test case for who pays for climate disasters.
United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for “massive investments” to help Pakistan rebuild, after the country suffered devastating floods last year. Floods caused by record monsoon rains and melting glaciers last year killed at least 1,700 people, and displaced around eight million. The waters are still receding.
“We must match the heroic response of the people of Pakistan with our own efforts and massive investments, to strengthen their communities for the future,” Guterres said, calling the floods “a climate disaster of monumental scale”.
“Pakistan is doubly victimised by climate chaos and a morally bankrupt global financial system,” he added. The UN chief also called for the creation of innovative access pathways to debt relief and financing for developing countries.
The pledges received were higher than the amount sought initially. Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said the South Asian nation needed US$8 billion over the next three years, with Islamabad providing the rest.
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Additional funding is crucial to Pakistan amid growing concerns about its ability to pay for imports such as energy and food, and to meet sovereign debt obligations abroad. The country’s finance minister will meet an International Monetary Fund delegation on the sidelines of the Geneva meeting.
Sharif called for a new “coalition of the willing” at the meeting.
“I am asking for a new lifeline, for people who need to power our economy and re-enter the 21st century with a future that is protected from such extreme risks to human security,” he said.
Big questions lingered over where the rest of the funding would come from. Before the pledges, UN data showed that less than half of the initial emergency phase of the disaster response had been funded.
Pakistan was at the forefront of efforts that led to the establishment of a “loss and damage” fund to cover climate-related destruction at COP27 in Egypt. But it is not yet clear if the country will be eligible to receive anything from the fund.
In a video message, French President Emmanuel Macron said Paris was ready to support Pakistan in talks with creditors, and pledged US$10 million in additional aid support.
UN Development Programme administrator Achim Steiner said the next phase of the Pakistan response represented a “monumental moment of reckoning for the entire world”.
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