Any scientific discovery, which is essential to save lives, should be treated as a global public good & be available to all countries & companies: Caretaker PM Kakar

NEW YORK, Sep 20 (SABAH): Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar has urged the international community to ensure better preparedness through legally binding obligations for building resilience against future pandemics.

Adressing the high-level meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response at the UN Headquarters in New York on Wednesday, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said Pakistan believes that the issue of pandemic preparedness, prevention and response can be best addressed through a legally binding treaty as mandated by the World Health Assembly.

The Caretaker Prime Minister further said any scientific discovery, which is essential to save lives, should be treated as a global public good and be available to all countries and companies. Secondly, commercial companies or private owners and actors should not be put in-charge of determining vaccines or medial production and distribution. He said this should be determined in intergovernmental negotiations under the auspices of the World Health Organization.

The Prime Minister also emphasized on global commitment to remove trade barriers, strengthen supply chains, facilitate the movement of medical and public health goods, diversify manufacturing, capacity across regions and promote technology transfer for developing countries. He said financing effective national, regional and global health emergency preparedness will require approximately 30 billion dollars per year, including an estimated gap of 10 billion dollars in new external financing per year.

Meanwhile Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar has called for promoting responsibility to protect environment, utilize and harness natural resources efficiently and undertake a sustainable and equitable approach towards nature as a public good.

Addressing the Climate Ambition Summit 2023 in New York on Wednesday, he stressed the need for deriving a climate action to achieve the climate goals across the globe. He said climate justice also entails providing developing countries like Pakistan with the financial and technological means to realize these higher ambitions.

Highlighting Pakistan’s priorities in dealing with the climate vulnerability challenge, the Prime Minister said we have recently adopted our first ever national adaptation plan to build climate resilience. He said our next step is the projections and casting of interventions identified in the adaptation plan complemented by a comprehensive resource mobilization strategy.

Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said we will also enhance our efforts to integrate adaptation into our planning forces. In the second phase of the plan, we would prepare a sector specific investment framework, which could serve as a blueprint to translate identified adaptation needs and strategies into tangible and bankable projects. He said Pakistan has also launched the Living Indus Initiative, which is a menu of 25 interventions aimed at restoring the ecological health of Indus River basin.

The Prime Minister further said that disaster risk management is a cross cutting priority in our national adaptation plan. Within the last year, we have taken significant steps in enhancing Pakistan’s early warning capacity including by updating our national flood prediction plan.

Talking about global warming, Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said although, Pakistan has not contributed to the problem of global warming, we have chosen to be a part of solution. He said Pakistan seeks to produce sixty percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2030. This energy transition will cost over 100 billion dollars and will require international support.

The Prime Minister also thanked UN Secretary General António Guterres for his active solidarity and mobilization of global support for Pakistan in the wake of last year’s floods.