Islamabad, 28 February 2023 (GNP): Today, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Government of Pakistan signed a funding agreement worth USD $5 million for a project through which FAO will assist the Government in its efforts to recover from the devastating floods that struck the nation, and Baluchistan in particular, in 2022.
The partnership between FAO and the Baluchistan Agricultural & Cooperatives Department (BACD) marks the first occasion for FAO to receive financing from and via a government in its capacity as a receiver of finance from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
In fact, this initiative comes after the ABD approved a USD 5 million grant to offer emergency flood assistance, boost the nation’s disaster and climate resilience, and increase food security.
The Japan Fund for Prosperous and Resilient Asia and the Pacific (JFPR) provided funding for the ADB Grant, which is a component of a bigger USD 475 million Emergency Assistance Loan (EAL) and USD 3 million technical assistance grant that ADB authorised in December 2022.
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The assistance is in response to the Government’s request for support in its post-flood recovery and reconstruction efforts, and it is intended to help the provinces of Baluchistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Sindh that have been affected by flooding rebuild their irrigation, drainage, flood risk management, on-farm water management, and transportation infrastructure.
JFPR will receive more funding Grant broadens the scope of ADB’s post-flood rehabilitation efforts, supporting, among other things, (i) the urgent distribution of climate-resilient seeds for staple crop cultivation and (ii) women-led livelihoods to meet basic household needs, as well as actions to increase community resilience to natural disasters.
In order to boost production in the four Baluchistan districts most likely to experience flooding in 2022—Nasirabad, Jaffarabad, Usta-Mohammad, and Sohbatpur—FAO will ensure that 60000 farm households get climate-adaptive rice seeds for the next Kharif planting season.
Across around 30% of the target districts’ total rice-growing area, seeds will be sowed. By giving them with sturdy toolkits for farming operations and protective footwear for safer rice transplanting, the FAO will also promote women’s livelihoods in agriculture.
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By assisting smallholder farmers in planting for the Rabi season, the initiative expands on FAO’s rapid reaction to the floods in the Nasirabad division. Moreover, it supports the commitment made by the FAO Director-General at the Geneva conference in January on climate-resilient Pakistan. In his statement he said, “FAO will continue to play a leading role in transforming Pakistan’s agri-food systems to make them more efficient, inclusive, sustainable and resilient, a challenge that has gained in urgency following recent floods that have devastated the country’s agriculture sector.”
The Economic Affairs Division (EAD) hosted a grant signing ceremony between the Government of Pakistan and ADB. Furthermore present were Takahiro Yashi, the Executive Director of Japan to ADB, Kazim Niaz, the Federal Secretary for Economic Affairs, and a representative of the Japanese Embassy in Pakistan.