UNITED NATIONS, Jan 21: The President of the United Nations General Assembly, Jan Eliasson, on Friday assured Pakistan of the international community’s consistent support in meeting the relief and recovery needs of Pakistan.
At a meeting held on Friday with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, he also conveyed international community’s sympathy to the victims and praised the government and people of Pakistan for their remarkable response in coping with the adverse situation aggravated due to bad weather and access problems.
The meeting was attended by major donor countries including USA, UK, European Union, European Commission, Germany, China, France, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Kuwait, Iran, UAE and UN agencies — Office of the Coordinator for Humanitarian assistance (OCHA), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), United Nations Children’s Education Fund (Unicef), World Bank, and the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC). The presidents of the Economic and Social Council (Ecosoc) and key UN bodies also attended.
Mr Eliasson expressed satisfaction over international community’s response to the UN flash appeal of $550 million, which had been funded by about 58 per cent. He stressed the importance of continued and assured financial support.
He stated that the UN stood behind Pakistan. It had adopted a resolution last year to this effect and UN Secretary-General appointed President George Bush Senior as his special envoy to coordinate international support for earthquake in South Asia. He assured UN’s consistent solidarity with government and people of Pakistan to alleviate the terrible impact of earthquake.
Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz apprised the participants about the scale of damage and the scope of relief and rehabilitation strategy of the Pakistan government. He said that the massive earthquake on Oct 8, 2005 caused 73,000 deaths, equal number of injured, displacement of 3.5 million besides economic losses of over $5.2 billion. He said that people and government of Pakistan with solidarity and support from international community and UN family were braving it with courage determination and fortitude.
He thanked UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and major donors and UN agencies for their generous financial and material support to the government relief and medium and longer term reconstruction strategy.
Mr Aziz said soon after the tragedy institutional arrangement for relief and reconstruction in the shape of Federal Relief Commission and Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Authority had been put in place.
The prime minister informed that 605 tent villages had been established, 18,000 helicopter sorties had been undertaken for relief missions, 850,000 tents, 5.4 million blankets, 2000 tones of medicines and 75,000 tons of food had been distributed. Immediate cash disbursement of $400 to each affected family had helped a modest start to their broken lives.
Another $2,500 are being given to the people to build their own homes. Special micro credit facilities had been established to kick start development and employment of affected people. He also mentioned construction of roads, communication infrastructures, schools, hospitals etc as key priority along modern lines by utilizing lighter and prefabricated material.
Pakistan had established 65 field hospitals, and 85 teams were working. He especially praised Pakistan Army and police for managing the situation in far off areas where local administrative structure had virtually collapsed.
Mr Aziz thanked international donors for pledging 6.5 Billion dollars at donors conference in Islamabad on 19 November.
He clarified that $4 bn had been offered as debt and soft loans while $2.4 bn as grants, material and NGO assistance. He stated that Pakistan would seek international assistance on most concessional terms. He termed the donors and the UN family’s assistance as vital for supplementing strained national capacities for both relief and medium to longer term reconstruction.
