“Pakistan is drowning, not only in floodwater but in debt” too, said UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif urged the international community on Tuesday to stay engaged with the country as it deals with this huge humanitarian crisis.
Pakistan and France, meanwhile, agreed to identify ways and means to support efforts to tackle the challenge caused by the floods and Paris offered to host an international conference before the end of the year to help Islamabad rebuild in a climate-resilient manner.
In a powerful speech to world leaders assembled for the first day of the high-level debate at the General Assembly, the UN president said, “I recently saw it with my own eyes in Pakistan — where one-third of the nation is drowned by a monsoon on steroids’.”
Mr. Guterres reiterated the plea he originally made during his recent trip to Pakistan, during which he urged lenders to take debt reduction into consideration in order to assist those countries that might be about to experience an economic collapse. At the UNGA, he reiterated, “Creditors should take into account debt reduction tools such debt-climate adaption swaps.” These may have helped Pakistan, which is drowning in debt as well as floodwater, preserve lives and livelihoods.
The head of the UN pleaded with the creditors to establish “an effective mechanism of debt relief for developing countries, particularly middle-income countries, in debt trouble.”
After the Covid-19 outbreak, world leaders are physically present at the UNGA for the first time this year.
