Azerbaijan to provide additional $2 million assistance to Pakistan

Geneva, The Gulf ObserveR: Deputy Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Elnur Mammadov spoke at the International Conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan in Geneva, according to media reports.

The main purpose of the conference was to attract the necessary financial resources to eliminate the consequences of the natural disaster that occurred in Pakistan last August and support the reconstruction of the country.

At the beginning of the event, Pakistani Prime Minister Mohammad Shahbaz Sharif and UN Secretary General António Guterres spoke, and a video message from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was shown.

The event was attended by representatives of 46 countries of the world, as well as 48 international financial and public institutions.

Deputy Minister Elnur Mammadov noted that Azerbaijan shares the pain of the friendly and fraternal Pakistani people and state, since 2010, a total of almost seven million US dollars has been provided to eliminate the consequences of floods that occurred in this country in different years. It was noted that in August 2022, Azerbaijan provided financial assistance to Pakistan in the amount of two 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. The Deputy Minister informed that, taking into account the scale of the consequences of the natural disaster, on behalf of President Ilham Aliyev, additional financial assistance in the amount of two million US dollars will be provided. The 2022 natural disaster flooded a third of Pakistan, killing and injuring 15,000 people and displacing 33 million people. The World Bank Group estimates that up to 9 million people could be pushed into poverty as a result of these 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 flood damage exceeded $14.9 billion, economic loss $15.2 billion, and needs in reconstruction – 16 billion US dollars. The plan, which forms the basis of the Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Recovery and Resilience (4RF) framework, identified key priorities such as livelihood and agricultural restoration, private housing, and public infrastructure rehabilitation and reconstruction.