WASHINGTON, Nov 11: At the first Pakistan-India joint fund-raiser for the earthquake victims, the World Bank announced a $200 million supplemental financing to help Pakistan cope with the disaster.
Speaking at the fund-raiser on Thursday night at the World Bank atrium, WB’s acting vice-president for South Asia, Dina Umali-Deininger, said an additional support of $270 million for Pakistan was awaiting approval.
She said the request for supplemental financing was approved at a meeting of the board of governors on Thursday, while the request for additional assistance would be presented before the board next week and it would hopefully be approved.
On Oct 25, the World Bank announced a package of $470 million to assist Pakistan in the reconstruction of the areas devastated by last month’s earthquake.
The package comprises $200 million in quick disbursing credits from the bank’s concessional International Development Association, a $100 million loan for highway reconstruction, $130 million in additional credit financing for community infrastructure and $40 million in reallocated IDA funding.
Ms Umali-Deininger said the WB, the Asian Development Bank and other international donor agencies were also preparing a joint assessment report. Based on the assessment, the World Bank would prepare an IDA recovery credit for Pakistan, which would be submitted to the board of governors in December, she said.
Dr Walter Andersen of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, which had organized the event in association with the Committee for Global Relief, said: “When we decided to hold a joint Pakistan-India fund-raiser, we were told that there’s no organization in the United States that can bring these two communities together. So we had to start from the scratch.”
Ambassador Jehangir Karamat said Pakistan was on a good economic track before the earthquake.
He said a prosperous Pakistan would have had the resources also to take care of the problems that lead to terrorism.
