Climate change ‘increased frequency of disasters’

Workshop speaker calls for earnest mitigating measures

ISLAMABAD: National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Lt General (Retd) Nadeem Ahmed has said Pakistan's economy is incapable of coping with any major disaster as owing to explicit climate change impacts the disaster frequencies in the region have increased.

He said at present, the disaster occurrence scenario has changed where the coastal region of the country is frequently hit by cyclones, the glacial lake outburst incidents, avalanche in Gayari and Attabad Lake have increased the risk which demanded earnest mitigation measures.

He was addressing at the concluding session of a two day specialized training workshop for non-government sector Potential Fund Implementing Partners (FIPs) here on Thursday. Lt Gen (retd) Nadeem Ahmed said since inception of NDRMF in April 2018, the Fund has developed in a befitting way and completed accreditation process of the partner organisations working in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and management activities in November 2018.

He said, "The entities which have not been accredited at this stage can resubmit their applications after meeting the gaps identified through the screening process. The accreditation process would continue to facilitate FIPs at the optimum level as there is no restriction for any DRR projects. However proficiency and experience of the implementing organizations is necessary.

He said: “We have a common goal to make Pakistan disaster risk resilient country and all-out efforts would be made to facilitate FIPs in the DRR projects' executions.”

Addressing to the participants, Asian Development Bank (ADB) Senior Project officer Shaukat Shafi emphasised on submission of quality project proposals with high level of preparedness to execute the grant implementation agreement with potential FIPs.

Dignitaries from National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA), State Disaster Management Authority (SDMA), Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) and Asian development Bank (ADB) attended the opening session.

Around 130 participants from 48 national and international entities, including the United Nations (UN) agencies, took part in the event. Each session was conducted by NDRMF sector specialist and matter expert.

During the concluding session, accreditation updates and lessons learned were also shared with the participants. They were informed that 45 entities applied for accreditation with NDRMF, out of which 19 entities qualified.

However, the participants were apprised about proposal guidelines, evaluation process and disbursement mechanism to be executed with potential FIPs after signing of Grant Agreement including cross cutting themes of environment, social and gender safeguards were discussed and practical exercises were conducted to enhance capacities on project screening, categorization and implementation.