• PM’s adviser tells Rome forum Islamabad needs $7-14bn annually for adaptation
• Urges overhaul of slow, debt-heavy climate finance system

ROME: Climate finance is being held back by bureaucracy rather than a lack of funds, Adviser to the Prime Minister Dr Syed Tauqir Shah told a global forum last week, stressing that frontline countries like Pakistan have been left struggling to access vital support.

Addressing the FAO’s Rome Water Dialogue, where he presented Pakistan’s national statement to an audience of leaders, ministers and civil society representatives, Dr Shah said, “Water crises are no longer an abstract policy discussion but an existential challenge for many countries in the Global South.”

He said Pakistan is among the wor­ld’s most climate-vulnerable nations and has now crossed the threshold into official water scarcity, with national food security threatened by extreme weather and chronic resource stress.

The crisis, he noted, manifests both as “devastating abundance” — the 2022 floods that affected over 33 million people, destroyed four million acres of crops and left 10 million without safe drinking water, with this year’s floods “equally catastrophic” — and as crippling scarcity, with total storage limited to about 30 days’ supply.

“Our need is clear and urgent: we require massive, timely investments in climate-resilient water infrastructure. This must be a mix of traditional, high-storage solutions alongside nature-based solutions like restoring floodplains, developing resilient irrigation techniques, and implementing watershed management,” he added.

Calling out the global climate finance institutions, Dr Tauqir said Pakistan requires an estimated $7-14 billion annually for adaptation efforts alone by 2030. “Yet, we are met with a global finance architecture that has turned the required investment into a paradox,” he said.

While building a case for reform of glo­bal climate finance institutions, he opined that the current global climate fund mechanism is characterised by critical failings that directly hamper our ability to invest and innovate in water resilience.

He said that despite the staggering national need, Pakistan has been unable to fully utilise available global climate funds because international criteria often demand highly specific, technically complex and “bankable” project proposals, requiring a level of institutional capacity that takes years to build.

He further highlighted that even once approved, funds are subject to slow disbursement rates and multi-year legal processes.

Criticising the climate finance modalities, Dr Shah said, “We find that the maximum available climate finance takes the form of debt and concessional loans, with only a small fraction available as grants.”

He lamented that debt is being loaded onto vulnerable economies that are already struggling with macroeconomic stability.

Citing the Green Climate Fund, he said the average time from concept to board approval is 24 months or more, and stressed that the first disbursement typically takes months after approval.

He referred to the GCF Independent Evaluation Unit’s finding that internal processes are “complex, fragmented and marked by bottlenecks”.

He said major climate funds are criticised by development experts for sluggish processing, excessive bureaucracy and disbursement delays.

“We call upon our global partners to shift the paradigm from an architecture of complexity and debt to one of speed and trust,” Dr Tauqir Shah said. “We need a financial innovation component which focuses on leveraging blended finance, green bonds, insurance mechanisms and incubation programmes to de-risk private investment and increase access to finance for smallholder farmers.”

While flagging the 2030 global development agenda, Dr Shah said, “The Sus­tainable Development Goals, especially SDG 6 (clean water) and SDG 2 (zero hunger), will remain beyond reach unless we confront this challenge head-on.”

Published in Dawn, October 20th, 2025