Pakistan, hit by devastating floods in 2022, has utilised only 29.4 per cent of donor funding for flood control projects out of a total of $3.36 billion pledged by international donors and $364 million in domestic funds through May, media reports said on Wednesday.
A meeting to review the progress of flood recovery on Tuesday reported that financial progress of 29.4 per cent had been achieved by May, with US$1.091 billion pumped across the country (by both federal and state governments), News International reported.
The Federal Government has so far utilised $258.89 million out of the allocated funds of $829.4 million, informed the fourth meeting of the International Partner Support Group (IPSG) chaired by Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Ahad Khan Cheema at the Prime Minister’s Office.
Tuesday’s meeting reported that Balochistan had the lowest financial progress of 1.7 percent, while Sindh had 41.2 percent progress. Punjab had 100 percent financial progress and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had 3.5 percent progress.
According to UNICEF, One-third of the country submerged in 2022 floodsFlooding destroyed much of the water system in the affected areas, forcing more than 5.4 million people to rely solely on contaminated water from ponds and wells.
Pakistan is ranked as the fifth most vulnerable country to climate change according to the Global Climate Risk Index, and a UN report has warned that the country will experience increasingly severe extreme weather events.
Total damages from devastating floods that affected 33 million people in Pakistan in 2022 are estimated at 3.2 trillion Pakistani rupees (US$14.9 billion), with total losses estimated at 3.3 trillion Pakistani rupees (US$15.2 billion).
The meeting, which marked nearly two years since the devastating floods of 2022, was aimed at reviewing progress in flood recovery and recalibrating efforts to make Pakistan more resilient ahead of the next monsoon season, the newspaper reported.
Cheema stressed on inter-state cooperation and reiterated commitment to transparency in the implementation of resilient Recovery, Reconstruction and Reconstruction Framework (4RF) projects, as pledged by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif at the last IPSG meeting.
First uploaded: 06 May 2024 17:34 IST
