By Imran Nasir  

ISLAMABAD: The International community has made over $10 billion pledges for rehabilitation, recovery and reconstruction in flood affected areas of Pakistan, state-run media said on Tuesday. 

The commitments received by Pakistan at the International Conference on Climate Resilient Pakistan in Geneva, jointly hosted by the government of Pakistan and the United Nation on Monday.

During the conference, Major commitment made by the Islamic Development Bank to provide  $4.2 billion, $2 billion by the World Bank, $1.5 billion by Asian Development Bank, and $1 billion each by Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and Saudi Arabia, Radio Pakistan reported.

While the US, China, Japan, EU, Germany and France also pledged to provide financial support to Pakistan. 

"These are additional commitments to what was already given to Pakistan in terms of humanitarian assistance from bilateral and multilateral partners," state-run media quoted Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar say saying. 

Earlier, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif while addressing the inaugural session of International Conference on Climate Resilient Infrastructure in Geneva said a new lifeline is need for our people to power our economy and reenter the 21st century with a future that is protected from extreme risks to human security.

Shehbaz Sharif said the first part of this plan reflects priorities for recovery and reconstruction, bearing in mind the minimum funding requirement of 16.3 billion dollars, half of which is proposed to be met from domestic resources and the other half from development partners and friends. He said the funding gap for minimum recovery is eight billion dollars which will be needed over the next three years. 

Shehbaz Sharif said the second part of the framework incorporates flood resilience design and infrastructure projects such as protecting key highways, rail line network, an early warning system and capacity building for rescue and relief in future disasters. He said it is clear that Pakistan's ability to recover from the colossal flood disaster, to restore critical infrastructure and revive rapid economic growth will hinge substantially on the speed of these actions. The most important link in this chain will be financial resourcing and if that gap continues to obstruct our recovery and minimum resilience needs, the results will be too catastrophic to image.

The Finance Minister said Pakistan is carrying out the fiscal reforms necessary for long term recovery and sustainability but we urgently need short term assistance to navigate a number of challenges. He hoped our friends and partners will always stand with Pakistan by providing us the required assistance during this most critical phase of Pakistan. He said options such as debt swaps by friendly countries will also free up resources to be spent for this noble purpose.