The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, called on Monday to raise more than eight billion dollars that Pakistan needs for reconstruction after it was swept by devastating floods last year.
“No country deserves to witness what happened in Pakistan,” Guterres said, speaking at the opening of an international conference aimed at collecting aid for Pakistan worth about $8 billion out of the $16.3 billion needed to rebuild it, especially in a way that can withstand the consequences of climate change. .
“We must respond to the heroic response of the Pakistani people…with massive investment,” Guterres said. He also called for reforming the international financial system to help Pakistan, a topic he raised during the Climate Conference of Parties (COP 27) in Egypt.
The World Bank called on Monday to “keep spending within tolerable limits.”
“A true resilient recovery is not possible without additional fiscal and structural reforms,” Martin Reiser, Vice President for South Asia at the World Bank, said, calling for better targeting of social assistance, spending cuts that “weaken the public treasury,” and the adoption of “progressive and broader taxation.” “.
Pakistan, the world’s fifth most populous country with 216 million people, is responsible for less than 1 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, but is one of the regions most vulnerable to increasing extreme weather events due to climate change.
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