UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan’s permanent envoy to the United Nations Ambassador Munir Akram has said that climate change has adversely affected Pakistan’s agricultural production, turning the food-sufficient country into a deficient one.
The Pakistani envoy said this during a UN discussion on how to apply the concept of finance for development to reduce and prevent food crises and foster the transformation of food systems.
The event was hosted by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
FAO’s Chief Economist Maximo Torero, who participated virtually from Rome, and the event’s co-organizers, Ethiopian Ambassador Tesfaye Yila Sabo and El Salvadorian Ambassador Egriselda Aracely Gonzalez-Lopez, were among the other speakers.
In presenting Pakistan’s case, Ambassador Akram noted that the nation was nearly self-sufficient in food, with agriculture employing 38% of the working force and contributing 22.7% of GDP in 2021–22.
The Pakistani envoy said, “Yet, there has been a steady deterioration in our production ability due to the climate change,” noting that his nation experienced one of the worst climate crises last year, with unprecedented summer floods drowning harvests and a spring heatwave shrivelling them.
He said: “The floods inundated 4.4 million acres of standing crops. We became deficient from food self-sufficiency, and due to the standing water, we cannot plant for the next season.”
The Pakistani envoy said that having suffered such massive impacts, Pakistan could not meet international support criteria.
He remarked, “We discovered to our shock that we are not eligible for the food shock window or the PRGT (poverty reduction and growth trust). For reasons, our talks with the IMF have dragged on for months and months. Ambassador Akram concurred with the UN Secretary-General’s assessment that the financial sector was “morally bankrupt” in this regard.
“People are suffering from exogenous shocks, yet they are not being able to gain access to support,” he said, highlighting that there is something wrong with the system we must seek to correct.” APP
