ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Friday approved a soft loan of $400 million to support the reconstruction of houses and community infrastructure in Pakistan’s Sindh province damaged by devastating floods in 2022.
The Sindh Emergency Housing Rehabilitation Project will restore flood-damaged houses and community infrastructure and support livelihood recovery with a focus on strengthening communities’ resilience to natural hazards caused by climate change, an ADB press release said here.
The project is a key part of ADB’s multifaceted response to Pakistan’s flood crisis and forms part of the bank’s commitment to provide a total of $1.5 billion in assistance between 2023 and 2025 to accelerate the country’s post-flood recovery.
“This project will help rebuild homes and communities and restore livelihoods and basic services in Sindh, the province most affected by the devastating floods in 2022,” said ADB Central and West Asia Director General Yevgeny Zhukov.
“This is part of ADB’s extensive support to help Pakistan recover from the disaster that affected 33 million people and damaged homes and infrastructure across the country,” Zhukov added.
Sindh province suffered about 83% of the total residential damage caused by floods in 2022, with about 2.1 million houses completely destroyed or damaged.
Two years on, many victims are still living in inadequate temporary shelters without basic services such as water, sanitation and electricity, he added.
The project will support conditional financial grants to renovate 250,000 homes with multi-hazard and environmentally friendly design. It will also support community-led construction of infrastructure such as drinking water facilities, sanitation facilities, covered sewers and renewable energy solutions for 100,000 households in around 1,000 villages in flood-ravaged Sindh.
The project will also support conditional cash grants for livestock, agriculture, small businesses and e-commerce.
“ADB’s support will not only help Pakistan build better, but also support community-led climate resilience and disaster risk management strategies to better prepare for future hazards,” said ADB’s Director of Water and Urban Development Srinivas Sampath.
“We are coordinating closely with other development partners to support the government’s recovery and reconstruction priorities,” Sampath added.
The project supports the Government’s Resilient Recovery, Reconstruction and Renewal (4RF) strategy and will follow an integrated and sequential approach so that investments across sectors are complementary. The $500,000 technical assistance grant will further support the government’s operational capabilities in procurement, regulatory compliance, and technical and financial management.
