ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed gratitude toward the international community on Tuesday for pledging $8.57 billion to support Pakistan’s flood recovery, describing the conference as a “resounding success”.
Devastating floods claimed more than 1,700 lives and affected over 33 million people in Pakistan last year. According to the country’s post-disaster needs assessment (PDNA), carried out in collaboration with development partners, the economic losses from the floods exceeded $30 billion — 8 percent of Pakistan’s GDP — and pushed 9 million Pakistanis into abject poverty.
On Monday, PM Sharif and United Nations (UN) Secretary-General Antonio Guterres co-chaired a day-long international conference on ‘Climate Resilient Pakistan’ in Geneva. The conference was attended by officials and representatives from around 40 countries, international financial institutions, foundations, and funds, both in person and virtually as Islamabad sought the world’s assistance in speeding up its reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts.
Following the conference, the Pakistani government announced it had successfully engaged the international community to gather funds to rehabilitate flood victims and carry out reconstruction in parts of the country impacted by the floods.
PM Sharif expressed his gratitude in a Twitter post to heads of states, governments, the European Union, and the United Nations for helping Pakistan in times of crisis and lauded the UN secretary-general for his leadership skills.
“A big thank you to heads of states & governments, European Union, our development partners & United Nations for making Resilient Pakistan Conference a resounding success,” Sharif wrote on Twitter.
“The world witnessed yesterday how nations can come together in a show of solidarity to create a model of win-win partnership to lift suffering humanity out of tragedy,” he added.
Of the total funds raised at the conference, the Islamic Development Bank Group pledged $4.2 billion, the World Bank announced $2 billion, Saudi Arabia pledged $1 billion, the EU $93 million, Germany $88 million, China $100 million, Japan $77 million, Asian Development Bank $1.5 billion, USAID $100 million, and France $345 million.
