Pakistan faced $30 billion loss due to flood: Raja Pervaiz Ashraf
ISLAMABAD, Sep 13 (SABAH): The “Third Inter-Parliamentary Union Regional Seminar on Achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for Parliaments of Asia-Pacific” began at the Parliament House in Islamabad on Tuesday.
The seminar aims to highlight the vulnerabilities of developing countries, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, to the ever-intensifying impacts of global climate change.
Addressing the inaugural session, Speaker National Assembly Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said the seminar will dilate upon a wide spectrum of topics such as inclusive development, climate change, hunger and malnutrition, promoting quality education and decent work for youth and ensuring equitable access to health.
The speaker urged the participants to deliberate on the grave challenge of climate change to human security. He said it is also for the legislatures to understand their role in ensuring effective mitigation of climate change.
Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said Pakistan is ranked eight amongst the countries most vulnerable to climate change despite contributing less than one percent to global emissions. He said the recent flood in Pakistan caused irreparable loss of precious lives and destruction to basic infrastructure including roads, houses, schools and basic health units. He said that Pakistan faced $30 billion loss due to flood. He said that crops have been destroyed due to the flood.
The Speaker said that the seminar provides us a very timely opportunity to re-assess the national and regional strategies toward achieving the SDGs till 2030 in wake of huge socio-economic jolt to our countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic especially viz a viz challenges of providing decent work, equitable health and ensuring food security in a world marred by adverse effects of climate change in the form of extreme droughts in some regions while flash floods in other.
The Speaker assured that Pakistan will continue to play its role for strengthening democratic traditions in the Asia Pacific Region, including introducing innovative parliamentary mechanisms for institutionalizing the 2030 development agenda.
Speaking on the occasion, President of the Inter-Parliamentary Union Duarte Pacheo urged the international community, especially the developed countries to help Pakistan recover from the catastrophe of floods. He pointed out that the contributions of Pakistan to climate change are too small but the consequences it is facing are too big. He said the biggest economies of the world, hence, need to understand their responsibilities to cope with the challenge of climate change. He stressed we need to act now to deal with this challenge.
The President of the Inter Parliamentary Union called for collective efforts to protect the environment and achieve the sustainable development goals. He was also appreciative of Pakistan’s commitment to the SDGS and the establishment of a Task Force for this purpose.
In her welcome address, Convener of Parliamentary Taskforce on Sustainable Development Goals Romina Khurshid Alam said the Inter Parliamentary Union and National Assembly of Pakistan have organized this regional seminar to devise ways to achieve sustainable prosperity.
Speaking at the seminar, Minister of State for Finance Dr. Aisha Ghaus Pasha stressed for the uplift of agriculture sector and rural areas.
She said the regional countries will have to focus on enhancing their production capacity as well as equipping the youth with quality education and training. The Minister of State said that the fruit of development must reach the poor segments of the society.