The United Nations predicts that Pakistan will need $16.3 billion to recover from the flood.
According to the UN Development Program, the summit in Geneva will help mobilize support for an immediate reaction to the crisis.
The United Nations announced on Thursday that Pakistan needs more than $16 billion to recover from the disastrous floods that drowned a third of the nation last year and to better withstand the effects of climate change.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will host an international meeting in Geneva the following week in an effort to address the enormous requirements.
High-level delegates from numerous nations, including some as-yet-unnamed heads of state and government, will attend the one-day conference.
Although it wasn’t precisely a pledge conference, delegates from the UN and Pakistan said it was meant to mobilise help as the nation rebuilds following the floods that claimed more than 1,700 lives and affected over 30 million others.
Knut Ostby, a representative of the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Pakistan, told reporters that there was a need for about $16.3 billion.
Syed Haider Shah, the chief of the UN division in the foreign ministry, spoke by video from Islamabad and stated that his nation aimed to finance half of that sum using its own “internal resources.”
We are looking for donor funding for the remaining items, he added.
Khalil Hashmi, Pakistan’s UN representative in Geneva, stated that “this is a key opportunity for the global communities to stand with the people of Pakistan” and emphasised that the meeting would be the start of a “multi-year process.”
Less than half of the $816 million sought in a previous plea to aid Pakistan’s catastrophic monsoon flood victims has been raised thus far.
However, even months after the monsoon season has passed, the situation is still terrible because flood waters in several southern Pakistani regions have not yet subsided.
While millions of people have started to return home, Ostby highlighted that many are doing so to damaged or ruined homes and muddy fields that cannot be planted.
According to him, the number of people who are food insecure has doubled to 14.6 million.
Pakistan is scheduled to present a document outlining a comprehensive plan for rehabilitation and reconstruction that is climate-resilient in Geneva.
Despite having the fifth-largest population in the world and contributing only 0.8% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, Pakistan is one of the nations most susceptible to extreme weather brought on by climate change.
What makes this meeting special, according to Ostby, is that it is both rallying support for the disaster relief effort and recognising that this is a global problem. It needs to be addressed with international cooperation.
