ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has approved $554 million financing package, including new and reallocated funds to support recovery and reconstruction efforts in Pakistan following the recent devastating floods, and to strengthen the country’s disaster and climate resilience.
The financing, which includes a $475 million loan and a $3 million technical assistance grant from the ADB, and a $5 million grant from the government of Japan, will support the restoration of irrigation, drainage, flood risk management, on-farm water management, and transport infrastructure in the flood-affected provinces of Balochistan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, and Sindh.
The ADB’s Emergency Flood Assistance Project will also incorporate climate and disaster resilience measures into the design of the infrastructure. ADB has repurposed an additional $71 million from existing loans to support the government’s flood-response efforts.
“This year’s floods, which affected 33 million people and brought enormous damage to infrastructure and agriculture, are a devastating reminder of Pakistan’s acute vulnerability to climate change,” said ADB Director General for Central and West Asia Yevgeniy Zhukov. “This project will help to rebuild critical infrastructure in affected areas and restore rural livelihoods.”
Flood relief: ADB 'working quickly to provide significant package' to Pakistan
After the unprecedented heatwaves in April to June 2022, Pakistan suffered a prolonged and intense monsoon that led to the country’s worst flooding in a century with glacial lakes bursting, rivers breaking their banks, flash flooding, and landslides. A post-disaster needs assessment conducted by the government and development partners, including ADB, estimated total damage and losses at more than $30 billion and recovery and reconstruction needs at $16.3 billion.
The loan will reconstruct about 400 kilometres (km) of roads; about 85 km of the N-5, the country’s busiest national highway; and about 30 bridges. It will also help restore and upgrade irrigation and drainage structures including canals and on-farm water facilities to restore livelihoods, and strengthen flood risk management structures to mitigate future risks to agricultural land, communities, and assets.
“More people are expected to fall into poverty as a result of the floods and the food-insecure population is likely to double to more than 14 million people in the most affected districts,” said ADB Principal Transport Specialist Zheng Wu. “In close coordination with the government and other development partners, this project will provide crucial support to restore agriculture and other priority infrastructure to support socioeconomic recovery from floods.”
Funded through the Japan Fund for Prosperous and Resilient Asia and the Pacific, the $5 million grant will support staple crop cultivation in Balochistan and provide at least 60,000 farm households with higher quality, certified rice seeds for increased productivity over 54,000 hectares of land. The grant will also support women’s livelihoods in agriculture by providing farming equipment.
The $3 million technical assistance grant will support the implementation of the project and the preparation of an ensuing flood risk management investment.
In October, the ADB approved a $1.5 billion loan to support the government’s provision of social protection, food security, and employment to mitigate the adverse impact of cumulative external shocks. The programme partly contributes to the floods response given that a portion of the programme beneficiaries are also flood victims.
According to the project documents, the emergency project was prepared in response to the Government of Pakistan’s request to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) on 6 October 2022 to support its post-flood recovery and reconstruction response. The project will contribute to the economic recovery of flood-ravaged provinces of Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh, while building longer-term resilience.
It will finance the rehabilitation and reconstruction of high-priority transport (roads and bridges), irrigation, drainage, flood risk management, and on-farm water management infrastructure that were damaged by the devastating floods. The project will also support the restoration of economic productivity and livelihoods of the flood-affected rural communities.
The project is part of ADB’s multi-tiered flood response to Pakistan and was designed in close coordination and cooperation with the World Bank.
The Project comprises three key outputs. Output 1 will be rehabilitation of flood-affected roads in Sindh province including a section of national highway (N-5) between Sukkur and Hyderabad and bridges on the national highways across the three provinces of Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Balochistan.
The rehabilitation of the provincial highway and district roads of Sindh province are also included in Output 1. Output 2 will be flood-damaged irrigation network, drainage, and flood risk management infrastructure rehabilitated and reconstructed in KP and Balochistan provinces.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022