GENEVA: Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has called for a sustained international plan to meet the daunting task of reconstruction and rehabilitation of flood-affected areas and build a climate resilient Pakistan.
Addressing the inaugural session of International Conference on Climate Resilient Infrastructure in Geneva on Monday, he said a new lifeline is need for our people to power our economy and reenter the 21st century with a future that is protected from extreme risks to human security.
The Prime Minister said together we have to rebuild the lives and dreams of flood ravaged people. He said the international community’s solidarity and long-term support to Pakistan at this critical juncture will make the difference between staying unprepared or facing the future with renewed hope and aspirations.
It is about the solidarity and vision needed to ensure the world’s transition to a sustainable future not on papers but on the ground in schools, in the fields, in business, in industries and in homes.
The Prime Minister said his government has prepared a comprehensive framework for recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction with resilience.
Shehbaz Sharif said the first part of this plan reflects priorities for recovery and reconstruction, bearing in mind the minimum funding requirement of 16.3 billion dollars, half of which is proposed to be met from domestic resources and the other half from development partners and friends. He said the funding gap for minimum recovery is eight billion dollars which will be needed over the next three years.
Shehbaz Sharif said the second part of the framework incorporates flood resilience design and infrastructure projects such as protecting key highways, rail line network, an early warning system and capacity building for rescue and relief in future disasters.
He said it is clear that Pakistan’s ability to recover from the colossal flood disaster, to restore critical infrastructure and revive rapid economic growth will hinge substantially on the speed of these actions. The most important link in this chain will be financial resourcing and if that gap continues to obstruct our recovery and minimum resilience needs, the results will be too catastrophic to image.
The UN chief called for “massive investments” to help Pakistan recover from last year’s devastating floods, saying it was doubly victimized by climate change and a “morally bankrupt global financial system”.
“No country deserves to endure what happened to Pakistan,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told an international conference in Geneva, which is seeking billions of Dollars to support recovery from the disaster.
Guterres opened the one-day event appealing to the world to help Pakistan bounce back from floods which submerged a third of the country, killing more than 1,700 people and affecting more than 33 million others.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari called the floods “a climate disaster of monumental scale”. Eight million people were displaced, millions of acres of agricultural land were ruined and around two million homes destroyed, while nine million more people were pushed to the brink of poverty.
