ISLAMABAD: With the provision of a $200 million grant by the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the government has signed an agreement to establish a National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF) to reduce the country’s vulnerability to disasters from natural hazards and climate change.

The NDRMF will be established as a public limited company under Sec­tion 42 of the Companies Ordinance 2016 to provide sustainable mechanisms to enhance Pakistan’s resilience to future disasters.

The focus of the fund will be disaster risk reduction, design and development, financing strategies and partnership with other organisations to provide relief and recovery support, including livelihood restoration initiatives and reconstruction of the public infrastructure.

The NDRMF will also conduct quantitative risk modelling analysis for major natural hazards faced by Pakistan to develop a comprehensive national disaster risk framework strategy. The framework will be used to create disaster risk maps and quantitative national and sub-national data for expected levels of loss from hazardous events varying in types, intensity and frequency.

Finance Minister Ishaq Dar attended the meeting where the government and the ADB signed a loan agreement for the provision of $200m and grant agreement of 4.5m Austra­lian dollars for NDRMF.

The agreement was sign­ed by Secretary of Economic Affairs Division Tariq Bajwa and ADB Country Director Werner E Liepach.

The high com­missioner of Australia and representatives of Norway, Japan, Switzerland and the European Union were also present on the occasion.

The total outlay of the fund will be $3 billion of which the ADB will provide $1bn in five tranches. The Australian government will co-finance the fund and other donors such as Norway, Belgium and Switzerland also expressed interest in making contributions to it.

Speaking on the occasion, Mr Dar thanked the ADB and the Australian government for the support and helping the government establish a common window to pool financial resources, adding that participation of development partners in the noble cause will also inspire organisations around the world to take similar initiatives. The NDRMF will strengthen Pakistan’s disaster preparedness efforts, he added.

Mr Liepach said that the fund is a trend-setting initiative which will not only mitigate the effects of natural disasters but will also help cushion the fiscal shock of a catastrophe.

Published in Dawn December 3rd, 2016