Media Contacts: World Bank: Shahzad Sharjeel (92-51) 2279641 ssharjeel@worldbank.org
ADB: Omana Nair (63-918) 9399062, (92-51) 2279641 onair@adb.org Islamabad, November 12, 2005—Pakistan will need approximately US$5.2 billion to effectively implement a relief, recovery, and reconstruction strategy, according to a preliminary damage and needs assessment released today by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank. Of this, US$3.5 billion is for physical reconstruction of housing, schools, health facilities, roads, and other public infrastructure. A companion report by the United Nations on early recovery will appear in a few days. At the request of the Government of Pakistan, a joint team from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank began an assessment of the needs and reconstruction costs following the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that devastated parts of Pakistan on October 8, 2005. The assessment was launched on October 24th and completed in a record time of 19 days. The assessment, carried out in close coordination with the Government of Pakistan, sets out clear guidelines for a comprehensive recovery approach that will meet the needs of the affected population. These guidelines call for a common framework adopted by all organizations and institutions involved to ensure consistency and equity across rehabilitation efforts. It estimates the overall damage to the earthquake-affected areas in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) will require US$3.5 billion for reconstruction, with a large proportion of losses concentrated in housing, public infrastructure (i.e., schools, hospitals, courts, public buildings, police stations); physical infrastructure (i.e., roads, water supply, sanitation, irrigation); energy, power, and fuel; and economic sectors (i.e., agriculture, livestock, industry, services). According to Government of Pakistan figures, as of November 3rd, at least 73,000 people were killed in the NWFP and AJK, with 3.5 million persons displaced, and an estimated 1.6 million persons without adequate food. The government is attaching highest priority to ensuring rehabilitation of vulnerable groups, especially the disabled who need extra care and attention in the aftermath of this devastation. “A joint team of multiple donor organizations and the government did a fantastic job in close collaboration, and worked around the clock in delivering this high quality damage and needs assessment in a few weeks,” said John Wall, World Bank Country Director for Pakistan. “The World Bank has already transferred US$200 million to Pakistan from the US$470 million announced earlier. The rest will be available in a week or two. We will indicate further amounts on November 19th. We stand ready to do as much as needed until the job is done in a manner which does not leave anyone behind. We all need to make sure that the additional burden of this calamity does not hamper the country’s overall poverty reduction efforts.” The preliminary needs assessment puts the total reconstruction cost for the main sectors as under:
Social Infrastructure: Private Housing—US$1,552 million; Health—US$303 million; Education—US$472 million; Environment—US$151 million; Public Administration—US$72 million.
Physical Infrastructure: Transport—US$416 million; Water Supply and Sanitation—US$32 million; Irrigation—US$10 million; Energy Power and Fuel—US$40 million.
Economic Sectors: Agriculture and Livestock—US$300 million; Industry and Services—US$155 million. “The tsunami experience showed that coordination, aid utilization, and accountability need to be prioritized in the reconstruction process,” said Peter Fedon, ADB Country Director in Pakistan. “We also need to ensure active local participation in the reconstruction process, which will be undertaken jointly with our development partners. We are fully prepared to work with the government to rebuild following this tragedy and will announce our further contributions at the donor conference on November 19th.” The assessment identified the guiding principles for reconstruction and recovery strategy as: - Rapid rebuilding of people’s livelihoods. Accelerate the revitalization of the local economy—revival of production, trade and the creation of income and employment opportunities in support of people’s own initiatives.
- Independence and self sufficiency. Maximize use of local initiative, resources, and capacities. Base planning and execution on local knowledge, skills, materials and methods, and enterprise, and ensure community participation in all aspects of the recovery process.
- Subsidiarity and decentralization. Take decisions on plans, design, and implementation at the lowest level possible to ensure community ownership and empowerment and to ensure solutions are locally appropriate.
- Focus on the most vulnerable and socially disadvantaged groups, such as children, women, and the disabled. Disasters increase the vulnerability of all, but especially those who are already disadvantaged. Recovery programming needs to give priority to the most vulnerable groups, including women-headed households, children and orphans, and the poor, and take account of those with special needs to avoid their being overlooked.
- Secure development gains and progress in poverty reduction. Disasters can reverse hard won gains in poverty reduction and development, risking a downward spiral of decline. Recovery planning must attempt to re-establish and secure previous development gains. The poor in areas not affected by the disaster (the vast majority in the case of Pakistan) should not lose out through excessive reprioritization of resources.
- Restoring capacities to manage the recovery process. The capacity of local institutions, including infrastructure, must be rebuilt. Along with local and national institutions, ensure that all levels of civil society are encouraged and empowered to participate in and manage the recovery process.
- Transparency and accountability. Achieve accountability through ensuring the effective operation of the judicial system. Achieve transparency through open processes and wide dissemination of all information on all aspects of the recovery process.
- Avoid the creation of new disaster risks. While avoiding radical redesign and restructuring of neighborhoods and towns, ensure that sensible and realistic measures are taken to achieve development progress, protect the environment, and reduce future disaster risks.
- Encourage engagement of private sector and civil society. Mobilize private investment—both human and financial. Ensure the local private sector has incentives and technology to participate fully in reconstruction, and ensure that financial and human contributions from companies and individuals, as well as the wider Pakistani Diaspora beyond Pakistan, are harnessed.
- Coordinated and coherent approaches to recovery. Ensure full and effective coordination among all involved agencies based on comprehensive information exchange, flexibility in administrative procedures, surveillance of any rent-seeking activity during implementation, and uniformity of policies.
As the Prime Minister has noted, Pakistan needs a more systematic approach to hazard risk management. In comparison to floods and draught, earthquake risk is less recognized, hence receives less attention. In light of the devastation caused by the 2005 earthquake, it is important to take into account some of the factors that may have exacerbated the damage in affected areas. Five pillars that elaborate a comprehensive hazard risk management approach are: risk identification, emergency preparedness and response, risk reduction, capacity building, and risk transfer. In the joint needs assessment, ADB focused on the education, transport, water, energy, and agriculture sectors, while the World Bank concentrated on livelihood restoration, housing, health, industries and services sector, and environment. Cutting across these sectors, the World Bank team also conducted an economic assessment and assessed hazard risk management and social safeguard needs. ADB, meanwhile, assessed the institutional capacity for reconstruction. Experts from the local and national governments, as well as other international organizations, including the European Union, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DfID), the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ), the German KfW, the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and other UN agencies also participated in this assessment. ###
|
RSS