ISLAMABAD: The government on Monday formally launched a $205 million National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF) to improve preparedness of institutions and strengthen infrastructure to mitigate risks arising out of natural disasters and minimise loss to public life and property.

The initial financing of NDRMF is through a $200m loan of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to the federal government and two grants worth $3.4m from Australia and $1.5m from Switzerland. The ADB plans to enhance its funding beyond $1 billion over the next decade.

The government has made these funds available to the NDRMF as a grant to finance through onward grants to eligible implementing partners both from public and private sectors.

The fund was formally launched here by caretaker Minister for Finance Dr Shamshad Akhtar who termed the NDRMF a first concrete step towards making Pakistan resilient against natural disasters and climate change impacts.

Minister terms it the first concrete step towards making Pakistan resilient against natural disasters and climate change impacts

The launching ceremony was also attended representatives of federal and provincial government agencies, disaster management authorities, UN agencies and foreign lenders.

The minister expressed concern that Pakistan had suffered about $20bn losses over the last few years, affecting more than 30m people and noted that the fund would go a long way towards sustainable financing system for risk reduction and mitigation activities in the country.

She said the government would make available additional resources to strengthen the fund’s operations to comply with international commitments and ensure that it carried out its activities in an efficient, transparent and coordinated manner. For this, she said, the fund management would have to mainstream its efforts for a coherent and institutionalised disaster risk management among federal, provincial and local government institutions.

Chief executive officer of the NDRMF retired Lt Gen Nadeem Ahmed said the fund would operate closely with the National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP) and National Flood Protection Plan (NFPP-IV).

He said both NDMP and NFPP-IV were developed by national and international experts to dilute the effects of disasters through strengthening the risk management system and building hazard protection infrastructures. However, due to lack of funding, these plans could not be fully implemented — a challenge hopefully to be met through the NDRMF.

Xiaohong Yang, ADB Country Director, appreciated Pakistan for its unique capacities with regards to managing diverse range of disasters and called it as potentially the best country in terms of knowledge, regulatory framework and disaster risk management infrastructure to implement this pilot idea of NDRMF.

He said the ADB would provide an additional funding of $1bn for this initiative in years 2020-2030.

Gen Nadeem explained that the federal government had been working with a number of development partners to identify opportunities and mechanism to enhance financial management of disaster risk, resulting in establishment of multi-donor NDRMF. It is a government-owned not-for-profit company with a corporate structure, incorporated with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan, under Section 42 of the Companies Ordinance, 1984.

The fund will also provide support in reducing the socio-economic and fiscal vulnerability of the country and its population due to natural hazards and climate change. It will finance up to 70 per cent costs of eligible projects to enhance Pakistan’s resilience to extreme weather events and other natural hazards.

On the sideline of the launching event an agreement was also signed between the Embassy of Switzerland in Pakistan and the ADB to support NDRMF. Stefanie Burri, Head of International Cooperation, Embassy of Switzerland, and Xiaohong Yang, ADB Country Director, signed the agreement.

Under this agreement, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) will provide 1.5m Swiss Francs (equivalent to USD 1.5m) to the fund. In addition, the SDC will also provide technical assistance to the fund through secondment of a disaster risk finance specialist.

The NDRMF will be focusing on projects based on thematic areas identified under two umbrella documents of NDMP and NFPP-IV. It will also help the government in complying with international and national commitments like Hyogo Framework, Paris Agreement, Sendai Framework, Vision 2025 and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Amin Ahmed also contributed to this report

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2018