Monitoring Desk
GENEVA: UAE Minister for Climate Change Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri has said that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) supports all international efforts to increase emergency relief, reconstruction, rehabilitation, and prevention in the aftermath of unprecedented floods in Pakistan.
The minister was addressing a high-level international conference in Geneva, which was organized by the UN and the government of Pakistan. She said that UAE’s humanitarian response reached the flood-hit areas and met the urgent needs of the affected people to enhance their living conditions.
The aim of the conference was to hold discussions on efforts to reconstruct infrastructure and review mechanisms for mobilizing world support for those affected by the floods that swept Pakistan in 2022.
Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri said that extending support to the affected people and ensuring medical supplies, food, and basic goods is an essential element of her country’s foreign policy since its “formation as a nation.”
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UAE and climate change
The United Arab Emirates was one of the first nations to respond to the floods, according to Almheiri, as the country deployed an air and sea bridge that included the dispatch of seventy-one aircraft and 6 ships carrying more than 8,000 tons of food, medicine, and shelter supplies benefiting more than 6.5 million families.
“Over the past 5-year, the UAE had provided over $2.4 billion in relief and development supplies to Islamabad, which included providing over 647 million doses of polio vaccines to 119 million kids from 2014 to 2022. $53 million has been allocated for the 2023-26 period to continue the vaccination campaign as part of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative,” the minister added.
UAE Vows to Address issue of Climate Change
She said that the UAE is committed to advancing international efforts in addressing the challenges of climate, reflecting its readiness to host the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties in 2023.
The Minister noted that the UAE regards this as an opportunity to work closely with international partners to seek effective and sustainable solutions to mitigate the issue of climate change.
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The United Arab Emirates will work to achieve this, the minister said, through a comprehensive approach that takes into account the interests of developing countries that suffer from the impact of climate change, including Pakistan, to attain faster recovery and enhance resilience in facing future problems.
