Donors offer over $9B to help Pakistan

Dozens of countries and international institutions on Monday pledged more than $9 billion to help Pakistan recover and rebuild from devastating summer floods that the United Nations chief called “a climate disaster of monumental scale.”

The flooding killed more than 1,700 people, destroyed more than 2 million homes, and covered as much as one-third of the country at one point, causing damage totaling more than $30 billion, U.N. and Pakistani officials say. Large swaths of the country remain underwater, with millions living near contaminated or stagnant waters, the U.N. says.

Wrapping up a day-long conference at the U.N. offices in Geneva, Pakistani Deputy Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar said the final tally came in above a target for the international community to meet half of the estimated $16.3 billion needed to respond to the flooding. The rest is expected to come from the Pakistani government itself.

U.N. pledging conferences often draw promises of big sums from governments, international organizations and other donors, but those don’t always get fulfilled entirely. The Pakistani government has announced plans for independent, outside monitors to make sure that the funds go where they are needed.

The conference shaped up as a test case of how much wealthy nations would pitch in to help developing-world countries like Pakistan manage the impact of climatic swoons, and brace for other disasters.

Achim Steiner, the head of the U.N. Development Program, which helped organize the conference, said Pakistan’s government knows contributors will be looking for outcomes such as in the accountability, clarity, efficiency, transparency and effectiveness of the programs that will be funded.

Earlier, Pakistani Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb tweeted that top donors included the Islamic Development Bank, at $4.2 billion; the World Bank, at $2 billion; the Asian Development Bank, at $1.5 billion. She said the European Union had pledged $93 million, Germany $88 million, China $100 million, and Japan $77 million.

The United States announced another $100 million on top of a similar amount already committed to Pakistan. Saudi Arabia’s envoy laid out a pledge of $1 billion.

Steiner said the big pledges from international financial institutions testified to pressure and expectations “growing almost daily” for them to do more to respond to the challenges of climate change, decarbonization, and energy transitions.

The conference drew Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif and U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres in-person, while other world leaders such as French President Emmanuel Macron and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took part virtually.