EU working on long-term aid plan for Pakistan

European commissioner for humanitarian aid tells MEPs that aid budget is stretched to the limit.

Kristalina Georgieva, the European commissioner for humanitarian aid, said today (31 August) that the European Union was working with the United Nations and the World Bank to assess long-term reconstruction needs in Pakistan.

Georgieva told the European Parliament’s development committee that there was a “tremendous need” for a nationwide effort to rebuild roads, bridges and other infrastructure that has been washed away by the floods that hit Pakistan over the past month.

She said the European Commission was working with UN agencies and the World Bank on a “needs assessment”, which she said should be ready in four to six weeks. “It will require a massive effort, but this has to be done in a well co-ordinated manner,” she said.

Georgieva updated MEPs on the EU’s aid efforts in Pakistan, saying the Commission and member states had already given more than €230 million in aid. She visited flood-hit areas in Pakistan last week.

The commissioner said she was “very worried” that the flooding and its impact on the population had not yet peaked and warned that her aid budget was stretched to the limit.

“We know that the water in the last few days has slightly receded…and yet I am not sure we have seen the peak of the crisis,” she said, adding that she had been told by relief organisations that only two million of the eight million people needing assistance have so far been helped.

“We are doing everything we can to stretch every euro we can to the fullest, but we may have to come back to you in the next months, given the proportionality and scale of this disaster,” said Georgieva.

Georgieva said she was now focusing attention on combining humanitarian assistance with early recovery aid, notably in ensuring farmers get access to seeds and tools needed to plant crops after their harvests were washed away by the floods. She warned that if new crops were not planted soon, Pakistan would face widespread food shortages.

She added that long-term assistance would also have to focus on helping Pakistan deal with the effects of climate change, which experts blame for heavier monsoon seasons.

Future aid to Pakistan will be discussed by the EU’s foreign ministers when they meet in Brussels on 10-11 September.