MANILA: The Asian Development Bank said on Thursday it will extend a $2 billion assistance package to Pakistan to help repair the damage to infrastructure from the worst ever floods to hit the country.
The Manila-based ADB said the amount will be for emergency rehabilitation and reconstruction work.
It was not clear whether the entire amount would be given via loans or a combination of loans and grants. The terms of the assistance package were also not clear.
“The extent of human suffering caused by the floods cannot be easily quantified, nor can the damage wrought upon the country's physical and social infrastructure,” Juan Miranda, ADB Director General for its Central and West Asia department, said in a statement.
“But what is clear is that this disaster is like no other in living memory — and that our response must also be unprecedented, equal to the need, and fast.”
The development lender initially approved a $3 million grant from its Asia Pacific Disaster Response Fund for urgent relief and rehabilitation measures for Pakistan. The amount will be on top of the $2 billion package.
The ADB said in another statement on its website that the bank's contribution to Pakistan's recovery was expected to be given over two years, based on the findings of a damage and needs assessment report to be prepared by a team of more than 100 experts led by the ADB and the World Bank.
The experts will be examining damages in areas that include transport and communication, energy, irrigation, water and sanitation, health, and social protection and public administration services.
The ADB also said it would create and oversee a special flood reconstruction fund and raise money from donors interested to help in Pakistan's rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts.
“We will ensure that money from donors is used in the right way, at the right time, and in a totally transparent manner,” Miranda said in a statement. Miranda arrived in Islamabad on Thursday to discuss the ADB's plan with senior government officials and other donors.
The United Nations said earlier that nearly half the $459 million needed to fund initial relief efforts had been secured after days of lobbying donors and warnings that the country faces a spiralling humanitarian catastrophe.
But only a small minority of the six million Pakistanis desperate for food and clean water have received help after floods that have killed up to 1,600 people and made four million homeless.
Pakistan's High Commissioner to Britain, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, said the cost of rebuilding could reach $15 billion.
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