UNITED NATIONS, May 17: Launching the “Early Recovery Plan for Pakistan” on Tuesday the United Nations Development Programme’s, Resident Representative Jan Vandemoortele and Pakistan’s UN Ambassador Munir Akram sought $300 million from donor nations to rehabilitate the survivors of earthquake.

At a press conference Mr Vandemoortele said that the money would be secured out of the $6 billion pledges made by donor nations at last November’s meeting.

It was needed to bridge the transition from relief to reconstruction laying out activities over a 12-month period, in areas such as education, water and sanitation and housing, he said.

Mr Vandemoortele pointed out that the successful relief phase was due to two main patterns — strong national leadership in the relief efforts and good international partnership. He believed part of the success was also due to the media coverage of the disaster, and subsequent relief efforts, saying: “ The media stayed engaged, and the media stayed positive, throughout this complex emergency.”

Earlier at a special session on Tuesday with the participation of representatives of concerned UN agencies, major donors and other UN member states. Ambassador Munir Akram expressed Pakistan government’s deepest gratitude and appreciation to the UN development group and to the Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for arranging the launch of this joint plan of action for early recovery in the areas affected by the October 2005 earthquake.

“My sincere gratitude to the Secretary General’s Special Envoy for South Asia Earthquake disaster President George Bush, who has been actively pursuing his mandate for expediting the pledges by donors into actual commitments,” Mr Akram added.

The Early Recovery Plan offered concrete proposals, so that donors could convert the more than $6 billion they pledged into tangible contributions.