Monitoring Desk
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations said on Thursday that more than $16 billion were needed to help Pakistan recover from devastating floods and rehabilitations that submerged a third of the state the previous year and to better resist the impact of environmental change.
To meet towering needs, Prime Minister of Pakistan Shehbaz Sharif and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will host a global conference next week in Geneva.
The one-day event could gather high-level representatives from dozens of states, including several heads of state who have yet to be named.
According to the Agence France-Presse (AFP), while not strictly a pledging conference, United Nations (UN) and Pakistani representatives said on Thursday that it aimed to mobilise support as the state deals with rebuilds after the massive and horrible floods that left more than 1,700 citizens dead and affected over 30 million others.
UN Development Programme’s representative
the UN Development Programme’s representative in Pakistan, Knut Ostby, said that the needs are around $16.3 billion.
Speaking by video in Islamabad, Syed Haider Shah, who heads the UN division in foreign ministry of Pakistan, said that his country hoped to cover half the amount through its domestic resources. Haider said that for the rest, we are looking the donor support.
Khalil Hashmi, the country’s United Nations (UN) envoy in Geneva, said that this is a pivotal moment for the international communities to stand with the citizens of Pakistan while stressing that a conference could be the beginning of a multiyear process.
The previous appeal for $816 million to help the victims of Pakistan’s cataclysmic massive floods has resulted in less than half that amount. Yet the condition remains dire months after the climate change ended, with flood waters still not receding in some places of southern Pakistan.
Millions of citizens remain displaced while many have begun returning houses, Ostby noted that they were returning to damaged and destroyed homes and mud-covered fields that cannot be planted. He said that the number of people facing food insecurity had doubled to 14.6 million.
In Geneva, Pakistan has, due to the present document laid out a wide-ranging strategy aimed at climate-resilient recovery and rehabilitation.
Ostby said that Pakistan, with the world’s fifth-largest population, has responsible for just 0.8% of international greenhouse emissions but has one the most vulnerable countries to extreme weather caused by climate change.
