ISLAMABAD: Chairman Senate Muhammad Sadiq Sanjrani on Tuesday proposed to the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) to include Pakistan’s recent crisis situation arising out of the devastating floods as an emergency agenda item in the upcoming plenary of the IPU which is scheduled to be held in Kigali, Rwanda in the month of October during the current year.
Chairman Senate officially wrote a letter to the President IPU, saying that Pakistan greatly values the role of IPU as a conduit of multilateral parliamentary interactions and therefore, it is high time to come forward and help Pakistan with relief assistance further coming up with a mechanism to compensate the lowest contributors to climate change who are currently facing its brunt.
During a recent interaction with IPU President, the Chairman Senate emphasized that IPU being the largest organization should play its role. He also proposed the constitution of a Working Group on climate change to take all the member states on board. The IPU President had agreed to the proposal and also promised to include Pakistan’s recent situation as an emergency item in the Kigali plenary.
The Senate Chairman also brought IPU President’s attention to the recent flood which has caused immense human suffering and loss of 1400 lives, left one-third of the country under water, destroyed 1.2 million homes, and affected 33 million people in total. It has also cost Pakistan more than 10 billion dollars in economic losses. He also cautioned about the threat of climate change.
“The human suffering, as a result, is obvious and un-parallel. Climate change is now reversing the process of human development by several decades”, Chairman Senate stated in his letter. He said that two hundred million people are among the world’s most vulnerable victims of the growing consequences of climate change.
He said that the importance of inter-parliamentary cooperation cannot be overlooked with particular reference to the role played by regional and international inter-parliamentary organizations in the areas of security, stability and sustainable development and there is a need to translate this cooperation into substantial humanitarian assistance provided in the aftermath of natural disasters or calamities.
In addition to this, the Chairman Senate is also forwarding his official letters to the brotherly countries and IPU member states to garner support for the inclusion of the recent flood situation in Pakistan as the emergency agenda item in the upcoming IPU plenary.
