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Azerbaijan has allocated 7 million dollars for flood relief in Pakistan

09 January 2023 21:23 (UTC +04:00)

On January 9, 2023, an international conference on "Climate Resilient Pakistan" was held in Geneva under the joint organization of the UN and Pakistan. The main goal of the conference was to attract the necessary financial resources to support the reconstruction and elimination of the consequences caused by the natural disaster that occurred in Pakistan last August, said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, APA reports.

In the opening part of the event, Pakistan Prime Minister Mohammad Shahbaz Sharif and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres spoke as organizers, and a video address of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was broadcast.

At the invitation of the organizers, representatives of 46 countries of the world, as well as 48 international financial and civil society institutions participated in the event.

In the speech, it was noted that our country shares the pain of the people and state of our friend and brother Pakistan, and since 2010, nearly 7 million US dollars have been contributed to support the elimination of the consequences of the floods that occurred in different years in this country. It was noted that in August 2022, Azerbaijan provided financial aid to Pakistan in the amount of 2 million US dollars in support of the elimination of the destruction caused by the recent floods, which are considered the worst natural disaster in the history of Pakistan. Taking into account the extent of the consequences, the Deputy Minister informed the Pakistani side and the participants of the conference that according to the order of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Mr. Ilham Aliyev, our country will provide an additional humanitarian financial assistance of 2 million US dollars to support the initiative.

A natural disaster in 2022 submerged one-third of the country's territory, killing and injuring 15,000 people and displacing 33 million people, making it the worst natural disaster in Pakistan's history. The World Bank Group estimates that as many as 9 million people could fall into poverty as a result of those floods. Pakistan prepared a Post-Disaster Needs Assessment Plan with the support of the UN system, the World Bank Group, the Asian Development Bank and the European Union and found that the damage caused by the floods exceeded 14.9 billion, the economic losses exceeded 15.2 billion, and the reconstruction needs exceeded 16 billion US dollars. The plan, which forms the basis of the reconstruction, rehabilitation, recovery and resilience framework (4RF), has identified key priorities such as revitalizing livelihoods and agriculture, rebuilding private housing, and restoring and rebuilding public infrastructure.