News / Pakistan

Report says up to 9 million Pakistanis dragged into poverty by floods

Friday, 07 October 2022 10:34 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 07 October 2022 10:34 AM ]

A girl sits on a cot as she crosses a flooded street at Sohbatpur in Jaffarabad district of Balochistan province, on October 4, 2022. (AFP photo)

Up to nine million Pakistanis are being pushed into poverty as a result of a recent severe monsoon floods linked to climate change, the World Bank announced on Thursday.

This year, Pakistan has been affected by unprecedented monsoon rains, which have killed 1,700 people, destroyed two million houses, and flooded more than a third of the country.

Eight million people in Pakistan are still displaced, living in tents and camps near stagnant lakes in destroyed cities. These people are the ones who have lost their property, home and life in recent floods in the country.

According to a World Bank report, the poverty rate in Pakistan is expected to increase between 2.5 and 4 percent as a direct result of the floods.

According to the report, the loss of jobs, livestock and poultry, agricultural products, destruction of houses, closure of schools, as well as the spread of infectious diseases and the increase in food prices and daily living expenses have exposed between 5.8 and 9 million people to poverty.

The report says that it will probably take time to compensate for the negative socio-economic effects of these floods.

According to the data of the Asian Development Bank, in Pakistan with a population of 220 million people, about 20% of the people live below the poverty line.

Before the flood, Pakistan's treasury was in a bad state with the cost of living crisis and dwindling foreign exchange reserves.

The World Bank has announced that inflation in the country will reach nearly 23% in 2023.

Pakistan is responsible for less than 1% of all greenhouse gases, but it is among the most vulnerable countries to extreme weather caused by climate change.

Research says that human intervention in nature and the increase in greenhouse gas emissions have caused more extreme weather events in the world.

Pakistan has asked rich and more industrialized countries that contribute more to the production of greenhouse gases to help the country in the implementation of climate justice.

Sherry Rehman, Pakistan's climate change minister told a conference in the Swiss city of Geneva on Tuesday that Pakistan was out of money to spend on recovery from the recent devastating floods.

"We have no space to give our economy any stimulus," she said.

Rehman called on the international community to accelerate funding for the ongoing domestic climate-linked disaster, which she claimed had no parallel in known history.

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