Pakistan Suffers $2 Billion Loss Per Year From Climate Disaster Events: ADB

As one of the region’s most climate-vulnerable countries, Pakistan suffers average losses from disaster events exceeding $2 billion per year, with women and vulnerable groups disproportionately affected, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said in its 2024 annual report. In 2024, ADB signed a $500 million policy-based loan for a program to boost Pakistan’s capacity for disaster planning, preparedness, and response. The program supports disaster risk mapping and modeling and the mobilization of public and private financing for disaster risk reduction and climate resilience. It will also improve coordination for disaster monitoring and response. The program will be able to utilize ADB’s contingent disaster financing facility for the first time in Central and West Asia, providing rapid disbursements in the event of a disaster. In 2024, ADB committed a non-sovereign loan of $41.2 million for SAFCO Venture Holdings Limited to develop a facility in the city of Sheikhupura in Pakistan, to produce 200,000 tons of sustainable aviation fuel that reduces carbon dioxide emissions by up to 85%. The facility will utilize waste by-products from an adjacent biodiesel refinery and export 100% of its output, mainly to the European Union, generating vital foreign exchange for Pakistan. As its first Innovative Finance Facility for Climate in Asia and the Pacific (IF-CAP) enabled investment, the bank committed $41.2 million of climate finance for a non-sovereign loan to spur production of sustainable aviation fuel in Pakistan, the bank added. In Pakistan, ADB committed an additional $330 million to expand the reach of a grassroots social protection program to benefit 9.3 million people, focusing particularly on poor women and their families. The new financing will improve the targeting of household poverty assistance; provide conditional cash transfers for the education of children and adolescents; and expand access to health services and better nutrition for women, teenage girls, and children in disaster-prone areas.