Pakistan faced $30 billion loss due to flood: Raja Pervaiz Ashraf

ISLAMABAD, Sep 13 : 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.