An international conference to help Pakistan overcome the devastating floods
The city of Sohbat Pur in Pakistan's Balochistan province is covered by water on August 29, 2022. Economic and non-economic losses and damages amount to tens of billions of dollars.
AP - Zahid Hussain
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
This is one of the advances of the COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh: the creation of an aid fund for the countries most affected by climate change.
Except that this fund does not yet exist.
How, then, to help a country particularly threatened by global warming like Pakistan, ravaged by historic floods in 2022… The UN is organizing an international conference in Geneva on Monday January 9 for the reconstruction of the country.
And the needs are enormous.
UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, French President Emmanuel Macron and other heads of state are expected to speak.
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Pakistan, which is still struggling with the consequences of last year's devastating floods, is asking billions of dollars in international aid on Monday to rebuild and better withstand the consequences of climate change.
The country, the fifth most populous in the world with 216 million inhabitants, is responsible for less than one percent of greenhouse gas emissions.
But it is one of the most vulnerable to the increasing number of extreme weather events.
Pakistan and the United Nations are therefore organizing an international conference in Geneva on Monday, where they will call on countries, organizations and companies to increase their support, including financial support, for the country's long-term reconstruction and climate resilience plan.
The conference will open with speeches by Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
Other heads of state and government are due to speak there, including a number by videoconference, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Some 450 participants from around 40 countries are expected, including representatives from the World Bank and development banks.
"The price of food will go up"
According to Pakistan's "Resilient Recovery, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Plan", which will be officially presented at the conference on Monday, some 16.3 billion dollars (15.3 billion euros) are needed in total.
The Pakistani government believes it can fund half of it through its own budget and public-private partnerships, but needs the international community to pay for the rest.
Losses and damages
were at the center of discussions at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh
.
The figures make you dizzy: 33 million Pakistanis affected by the floods, 8 million displaced, at least 1,700 dead, thousands of kilometers of roads and railways destroyed.
So much for the human and material balance sheet.
But the worst may still be to come, fears the representative of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Pakistan, Knut Ostby, at the microphone of our correspondent in Geneva,
Jérémie Lanche
: “
Nine million more people could be pushed into poverty by the floods.
They have not only destroyed part of the agricultural harvest but they prevent farmers from planting for next year.
The price of food will therefore increase.
And that could double the number of food insecure people.
From 7 million today to over 14 million.
»
The water has not yet receded everywhere, more than six months after the disaster.
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