UNITED NATIONS: Pakistan has urged the international community to set up a dedicated fund for dealing with natural disasters as the United Nations described the global response to such calamities as weak and insufficient.
“Climate threats are global, and they warrant global objectives and global success,” said NDMA Chairman Lt Gen Inam Haider Malik while addressing a General Assembly session in New York.
“Pakistan proposes a dedicated global disaster risk reduction fund under the UN to finance global and regional initiatives,” he added.
Gen Haider, who represented Pakistan at this high-level midterm review of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, said this fund should be “separate from climate focused financing windows.”
The framework outlines targets and priorities to prevent new and reduce existing disaster risks through understanding, management, investment, and preparedness. It also suggests strengthening the mechanism for recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction works. The framework was adopted at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan, on March 18, 2015, and aims to achieve its targets by 2030.
Gen Haider informed the gathering of global leaders that Pakistan was facing a daunting recovery and reconstruction challenge after last year’s devastating floods that impacted 30 million people, took 1,740 lives, and cost a loss of more than $30 billion.
“In spite of its huge financial challenges, Pakistan demonstrated an outstanding resolve in dealing with this unprecedented disaster,” he said.
Earlier on Thursday, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told the General Assembly that global progress towards disaster risk management “has been weak and insufficient” and the framework could miss its 2030 target.
The session brought experts from around the world to consider speeding up efforts to fully implement the 2015 framework agreement to bring about a safer world. But a UN report, released this week, noted that despite the agreement, “more people globally are being affected by disasters now than ever before.”
For General Assembly President Csaba Krösi, the midterm review was “our last chance before 2030 to collectively change course” before it’s too late. “Eight years on, we must admit that our progress has not kept pace with the urgency of our days,” he warned.
According to the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR), there has been an 80 per cent increase in the number of people affected by disasters since 2015. UNDRR also noted that many of the lessons from past disasters “seem to have been ignored.”
The UN Deputy Secretary-General reminded the gathering that managing risk was not an option but a global commitment, “Our world is at a defining point in history. As we review our journey halfway to 2030, we must acknowledge that progress has been weak and insufficient,” Ms Mohammed said. As countries did not meet climate and sustainable development commitments, natural disasters that could have been prevented have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions to be uprooted, mainly women, children, and other vulnerable groups, she said.
Rs3bn to rebuild flood-hit structures
The National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF) will approve funds of over Rs3 billion to Sindh’s irrigation department to rebuild structures damaged by floods.
The funding is meant for the project titled, ‘Building Resilience of Damaged Flood Mitigation Structures Along River Indus in Sindh Resilience and Adoptive Population in Disaster’.
NDRMF CEO Bilal Anwar and Project Director of Flood Emergency and Reconstruction Projects of Sindh Irrigation Department Abdullah Bhurgri signed the contract. The financial support will be extended to respective entities as grant financing.
The project is designed for rehabilitation/reconstruction of four schemes that received major damages/losses during the monsoon floods 2022 in Shaheed Benazirabad, Naushero Feroze, Sujawal and Matiari and needed rehabilitation on an urgent basis as any flooding of similar nature may cause damages to life and property.
Sindh was one of the worst affected province during last year’s floods. A total of 10 million people were affected in 30 districts.
The worst affected areas remained inundated for months due to the absence of natural drainage pathways leaving behind a vast magnitude of damaged public infrastructure, agriculture land and houses of people, requiring extensive medium to long-term rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts.
The proposed interventions are in line with National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP).
The federal government had been working with a number of development partners to identify opportunities and mechanism to enhance financial management of disaster risk.
These initiatives resulted in establishment of multi-donor NDRMF, a government-owned not-for-profit company with a corporate structure, incorporated with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, under Section 42 of the Companies Ordinance, 1984.
NDRMF finances up to 70 per cent of eligible projects cost while 30 per cent of the total project cost is borne by the fund implementing partners. It works for reducing the socio-economic and fiscal vulnerability of the country & its population to natural hazards and climate change, through financing investments in DRR and preparedness that have high economic impacts.
Iftikhar A. Khan from Islamabad also contributed to this report.
Published in Dawn, May 20th, 2023
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