PESHAWAR
Terming Geneva conference as highly successful, political and economic experts here Tuesday said that over $10 billion international pledges in the historic moot would help further speed up rehabilitation, recovery and reconstruction efforts in the flood affected areas of Pakistan.
The experts said that over 33 million people were affected by the last year flood in Pakistan, who were looking for our help and assistance and urged the world donors to quickly release the committed amount to Pakistan in order to ease their sufferings in the wake of harsh weather conditions.
Ikhtair Wali Khan, Pakistan Muslim League-N spokesman and member provincial assembly, told APP on Tuesday that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and his team deserved full credit and appreciation for successfully holding a climate resilience conference at Geneva in Switzerland.
He said participation of world leaders, heads and representatives of international financial institutions, donor agencies and development partners that pledged over $10 billion assistance for flood victims of Pakistan has shown success of an international moot and reposed confidence in the Shehbaz Sharif government.
“The Geneva moot was the need of the hour keeping in view of the large-scale devastations in terms and humans, materials and economic losses by August-September floods in KP, Punjab, Sindh and Balochistan,” he maintained.
The last floods had inflicted over Rs1.820 billion losses to fishery sectors in Khyber Pakthunkhwa where many carp and trout hatcheries were either destroyed or damaged adversely affecting fish production in the province.
Similarly, 2216 plantation sites of the ten billion trees afforestration project were affected by the last year floods thus inflicted Rs255 million losses to the province’s already fragile economy. Besides fisheries and forestry sectors, the floods have also inflicted over $2.29 million losses to 105 mini micro hydel power stations in nine districts of Khyber Pakthunkhwa.
Nine power stations were damaged in Batagram with an estimated financial losses of Rs 9,825,000, eight in Manshera with Rs 89,800,000 losses, 25 in Swat with Rs 184,000,000 losses and 13 in Shangla with Rs 56,000,000 losses.
Similarly, floods caused damages to 13 mini macro power stations in Kohistan having estimated financial losses of Rs 75,600,000, 19 in Chitral with Rs 41,140,000 losses, 14 in Dir Upper with 19,646,000 losses and two in Lower Dir with Rs 1,450,000 losses while two in Buner with Rs 3,700,000 losses. The total losses to these power stations were estimated at Rs 481,209,000 ($2,209,002.02), officials in KP Energy Department told APP.
Sumbal Riaz, an economic expert said that $410 billion pledges made at the conference co-chaired by Pakistan and United Nations in Geneva included $ 4.2 billion from Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), $ 2 billion from World Bank, $ 1.5 billion from Asian Development Bank (ADB), $ 1 billion from Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and $ 1 billion from Saudi Arabia.
She said the Bloomberg’s report regarding no threat of default to Pakistan showed that economic and financial policies of the government were moving in the right direction and all major economic issues would be addressed amicably after successful talks between the Government and IMF.
Sumbal Riaz said that last year flood devastation had largely contributed to the Pakistan’s economic woes and expressed optimism that the IMF would revisit its tough conditions and provide assistance to Pakistan in time.
Professor Dr Ejaz Khan, former faculty member of international relations department, university of Peshawar said the Geneva moot had conveyed a very positive message to the world that all international organizations and donor agencies were fully cooperating with the Pakistani government.
He said the international community at Geneva conference showed strong commitment to help Pakistani Government during rehabilitation and recovery of over 33 million flood victims in the country where more than 1,730 people were killed and over 2 million housing units impacted besides destruction of thousands of schools, hospitals and roads and pushing an additional 9.1 million people below the poverty line.
He underscored the need for speedy implementation and honouring of the international pledges so that the rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts in flood hit areas of Pakistan could be further accelerated besides overcoming difficulties of flood victims who were still looking for our help and assistance especially at Sindh and Balcohistan in harsh weather conditions.
