SEOUL: Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Masatsugu Asakawa on Tuesday assured the bank’s continued backing for the incumbent government’s structural and critical reforms at a time when the country experienced devastating floods last year caused by climate change.
Addressing a presser at the ADB Board of Governors annual meeting here at Incheon (a bordering city of South Korea’s Capital, Seoul), Masatsugu Asakawa said Pakistan was taking fast stabilization measures, including spending, boosting tax revenues and financial sustainability of the energy sector.
The President said the ADB was backing these policy measures that would definitely help to improve the economic situation in the country and would help improve fiscal space for boosting social protection transfers.
He added that ADB would continue backing Pakistan in these reforms through Policy-based lending activities to help improve its financial and economic position.
ADB Supporting Pakistan to Fight Climate Change
Responding to a question over ADB’s response on possible heavy rains with floods this year in Pakistan, he said that Pakistan was taking swift economic stabilization and rehabilitation measures and the ongoing structural reforms would definitely bring economic stability to the country and create fiscal space for enhanced social protection transfers.
The President renewed the pledge of the international financing lender to continue having all possible assistance to Pakistan, adding that ADB would maintain to continue its support to improve economic conditions in Pakistan.
He also announced a new programme IF-CAP (Innovative Finance Facility) for Climate in Asia and the Pacific, calling the plan “a global first in its scale and scope.”
The President further said that the region required investment of trillions of dollars to combat the challenges of climate change, and to reach the level, there was a dire need to maximize the capital in new ways.
He further stated that they aim to bring i about $3 billion for IF-CAP, which could help to unlock up to $15 billion of new ADB climate projects. This will help ADB to significantly accelerate climate action and achieve more fruitful results.
Commenting on the ongoing impact of climate change, the president said that in the recent past, war, disease, and economic challenges have taken a terribly increased number of human welfare.
He said the global challenging battle against climate change would be won or lost in Asia and the Pacific, adding that since 2000, over 40% of climate-related disasters have occurred in the Pacific and Asia. More than 3.5 billion people have been affected, with about one million deaths. He informed that by 2050, another 1 billion people living in urban areas in the region are fear to be suffered from harmful air pollution and heat stress.
