It is indeed a diplomatic, political and strategic accomplishment for a cash-strapped Pakistan to gather a hefty USD 10 billion but experts worry where this bailout money will go – in safeguarding weaker people of the country against another disaster or in building substandard public sector development projects.
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif received pledges worth USD10, more than the targeted USD8 billion, “to rebuild the lives and dreams of flood-ravaged people" at the one-day International Conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan in Geneva, Switzerland, on January 9, 2023.
At the meeting, co-hosted by Pakistan and the United Nations, and attended by heads of states and other stakeholders, PM Sharif said, “Pakistan needed $8bn from its international partners over the next three years to rebuild the country” and called for a sustained international plan to meet the daunting task of reconstruction and rehabilitation of flood-affected areas and build a climate-resilient Pakistan.
The premier reminded the participants of devastation caused by the unprecedented floods last year and his government’s comprehensive plan for recovery, rehabilitation, reconstruction and resilience — the 4RF.
Providing details, Information Minister Marriyum Aurengzeb tweeted: “The first plenary of day-long Geneva conference culminated in generous outpouring of int’l community, EU pledged $93 million, Germany $88 million, China $100 million, IDB $4.2 Billion, WB $2 billion, Japan $77 million, ADB $1.5 billion”
In a series of tweets thereafter she said, “USAID $100 million, France $345 million, total $8.57 billion, in line with collaborative vision of coalition of willing.”
https://twitter.com/Marriyum_A/status/1612433012188188673
She further tweeted, “The brotherly country Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has pledged $1 billion to assist Pakistan in daunting task of resilient recovery and rehabilitation. millions.”
https://twitter.com/Marriyum_A/status/1612455987646025731
Experts welcome the conference’s outcomes but not without reservations. "Pledges made at the conference are no ordinary feat for the Sharif government," said analyst Muzammil Suhrawardi during the Naya Daur's flagship programme, Khabar Sey Aagay.
Another analyst Fauzia Yazdani says that it is appreciable that donors are coming together to support rehabilitation in Pakistan after the climatic catastrophe in monsoon last year -- “However the message is clear -- that it’s a strategic support to build resilience in Pakistan.”
She adds, the received funds must be directed towards cross-sectoral institutional reform, leading to urban, local and community-based resilience reflected in planning, budgeting and government’s service delivery.
Environmentalist Ali Tauqeer Sheikh partially agrees. “It an important political and strategic message. It gives a lease of life to the present political government. It will end Pakistan’s isolation in the global community. It will also give a psychological boost to the economy that it is not on the brink of collapse. It will put pressure on the IMF to expedite the disbursement of loans”.
But beware; this is not a great success story – not as yet at least – because “Pakistan’s history of disbursements is not so inspiring,” says Sheikh, adding: “After the earthquake in 2005, Pakistan managed the international community to commit USD 6 billion, and we are light years away from the promises made after the disaster to build back better. Then, under the Friends of Democratic Pakistan programme in 2008, the international donor community pledged USD 5.8 billion but Pakistan failed to do its fair share to help their own people.”
Pakistan cannot adopt a top-down approach to address the problem of climate vulnerability, says Sheikh, because the solution lies with the local governments, “which means local level financial allocation and monitoring”.
According to him, once the promised funds come in, Pakistan usually stumbles in the allocation stage – “Ministers allocate funds to ill-designed projects, not attuned to climate conditions, and substandard infrastructure is built that fails to withstand the onslaught of another natural calamity”.
Pakistan cannot adopt a top-down approach to address the problem of climate vulnerability, says Sheikh, because the solution lies with the local governments, “which means local level financial allocation and monitoring”.
Yazdani adds that the government will have to focus on the resilience of local and urban government systems because calamities lead to issues of human mobility from rural to urban areas and create informal settlements, stress functional systems and affect socio-economic integration.
Pakistan’s record of disaster management has been poor. The functions of Earthquake Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority (ERRA) and national and provincial disaster management authorities have become murky after the devolution of power to the provinces. Fiscal decentralisation has not taken place from provincial to local level and funds are wasted in capacity building. Therefore, Yazdani feels, “These government authorities should be scrapped and local government should be set up.”
Perhaps, for the Geneva conference to be successful another one must be held in the next few years to evaluate the progress made in Pakistan. The world has abandoned the mantra of ‘build back better’. “The new mantra is to build, better, stronger and faster,” Sheikh says.