Donors conference: Will the pledges materialise?

Though the world community, including friendly states and institutions, responded overwhelmingly to Pakistan’s appeal by pledging over $10 billion for the recovery of flood-hit areas at the International Conference on Climate Resilient in Geneva on Monday, chances are slim that donors will make good on their commitments mainly because of the domestic political situation, and secondly, if the country showed a laid-back approach from here on.

It is no secret that Pakistan is out of money. For this reason, it sought financial assistance from the global community as the funds needed in the aftermath of last year’s devastating floods had quickly ramped up.

The world has undoubtedly extended its support to Pakistan but what is left to be seen is if the country can protect these pledges from the political change during the election year and provide development projects to the donors to finance when the planning ministry lacks jurisdiction.

“The world is showing trust. We need to show trustworthiness,” renowned expert on climate change and development Ali Tauqeer Sheikh said, adding that Pakistan would get the pledged amount for the next three years, but it all depended how the country proceeded on from here.

“Planning, disbursement of the amount and its impact is a test for Pakistan.”
The climate change expert laid emphasis on spending the funds “speedily with purpose” for the pledges to materialise further.

“If Pakistan is able to spend quickly and show the world its impact only then will the pledges further materialise,” Sheikh said, adding that chances were that the international community could give more if the momentum was maintained.

“But then again, Pakistan’s domestic situation is not good,” he said, observing that “if the government changes then things might get delayed or do not materialise in the coming years”.

Sheikh said while pointing out that no one should complain if, like in the past, the authorities concerned even failed to open bank accounts for months.

Deliberating on the issue, former Board of Investment (BoI) chairman Haroon Sharif hailed the support from the global community.

“Most of the money is through multilateral banks which will need projects to finance,” the ex-BoI head said, adding that “our ability to develop schemes and manage them is weak while the Ministry of Planning cannot do it as most of this is in the provincial domain.”

Sharif said a private sector-led unit may help with bankers, engineers and climate experts to dedicatedly work on the project.

“With elections coming in 2023, these institutions will spend time in planning and see how Pakistan can insulate these pledges from political change,” Sharif said, maintaining that “we need a strong independent institution to deal with it”.

“First we need to know what happened to the pledges Bilawal Bhutto Zardari claimed,” PTI senior vice president Fawad Chaudhry asked while talking to The Express Tribune.

“As much we want these pledges come true. The record of this government and trust on the ruling elite is so low that it will be difficult to believe all the announcements.”

The PTI leader questioned why the whole cabinet opted to be in Geneva instead of Islamabad when it was “practically a virtual conference”.

The PTI leader called the donor conference “flopped” and blasted the premier for massive spending on the visit to Geneva. “The money did not come, but hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on the visit of the premier and his cabinet,” Fawad said.

Pakistan is among the countries that face endless suffering because of the climate-induced rains and floods affecting over 33 million people in the country last year.

Experts say a lot depends of what the incumbent or the next government does to help the rain-and-flood-hit victims and improve resilience.

Though experts view global pledges positively, they nonetheless point out that rich nations had failed in the past to meet a long-standing commitment to deliver $100 billion to help poorer countries cope with climate change.

Also, they said, the global governments’ plans to cut emissions in the years ahead have proven to be not enough to avert catastrophic climate change.

While referring to the global pledgers’ past record — where they failed to generate finances and cut emissions — the experts said that pledging might help unlock agreement on key issues but noted that it was too early to tell whether it would lead to positive change for the environment and climate-change victims.

“This is the first time the world has acknowledged climate loss and set a new precedent by pledging billions of dollars for the victims of rains and floods in Pakistan,” Sheikh said, recalling that earlier the global community had pledged for Ukraine, Syria and other countries “but the difference is that this time it is for climate loss”.

Acknowledging that Pakistan government got massive support from the global community for the flood victims after they saw government’s willingness to help people, experts said that it was not only a positive sign for the flood-affected people in Pakistan but also for democracy in the country.

Sheikh while giving a reason for global pledges said that the world came forward to help when it saw commitments just like Pakistan’s top civil and military leadership showed the other day when it was conveyed that it was ready to combat terrorism and would not even hesitate to conduct cross-border strikes.

An ex-state minister, who dealt with bringing investment in Pakistan, said that officials in the country did not adhere to deadlines and resort to a laid-back approach, observing that sometimes it seemed that they did not even have the capacity to work.

Requesting anonymity, he said the successive governments had failed to “pick up the low-hanging fruit because of the lazy attitude [of the officials] causing inordinate delays”.