In a major blow to crisis-hit Pakistan, the World Bank has delayed the approval of two loans, worth $1.1 billion, until the next fiscal year starting 2024, reported Pakistan-based The Express Tribune. The Washington-based lender’s decisions to withhold approval of the second Resilient Institutions for Sustainable Economy (RISE-II) loan worth $450 million and the second Programme for Affordable Energy (PACE-II) worth $600 million will be a major jolt for the Pakistani government. “The indicative date for (World Bank) Board discussion of the RISE-II project is fiscal year 2024, which will start on July 1, 2023 and end on June 30, 2024,” a World Bank spokesperson said.
Pakistan Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif’s coalition government was already struggling to revive the International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme. The World Bank’s latest decision, however, has created a hole of $1.5 billion against the government’s annual financing plan, reported the Tribune.
Donors offer over $9B for Pakistan after devastating floods
Dozens of countries and international institutions on January 9 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”, reported AP.
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, UN and Pakistani officials say. Large swaths of the country remain under water, with millions living near contaminated or stagnant waters, the UN said.
Wrapping up a day-long conference on January 10 at the UN 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.
“Taken as a whole, these commitments total more than $9 billion and from what we know so far, these are all additional commitments from what was already given in terms of humanitarian assistance, etc., from both bilateral and multilateral partners,” she said, adding that a number of delegations had also offered in-kind support.