ADB, IsDB to provide $665m for flood protection project

ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) have agreed to provide about $665 million to Pakistan to finance Rs195bn Flood Protection Sector Project-III (FPSP) to build resilience in the country against climate change impacts for improvement of country-wide comprehensive flood management approaches both through structural and non-structural interventions on integrated and innovative basis.

Official record suggests that the Economic Affairs Division (EAD) has reported to the ministries and authorities concerned that ADB and IsDB had agreed to finance FPSP with an amount of $400 million and $265 million, respectively, while the contribution of $100m Chinese grant was also expected. Based on EAD’s confirmation, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) has recently cleared the project documents of FPSP-III with a total estimated cost of Rs194.63bn for formal loan agreements and project implementation in all the four provinces, Azad Jammu & Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan.

The project, prepared by the Ministry of Water Resources and to be executed across the country, will be financed through federal and provincial components and donor financing. The 20pc government equity would be shared by the centre and the provinces with 10pc (Rs19.5bn) each while the remaining 80pc (about Rs156bn) would comprise the lender financing.

The federal component of the loan would be fully repaid by the federal government while the provincial loan would be shared on 50:50 basis by federal and respective provinces. The project implementation would be overseen through quarterly sessions by a steering committee led by minister for planning and comprising secretaries of water resources, planning, aviation, provincial chief secretaries and irrigation secretaries, chairmen of Wapda and federal flood commission, member water planning commission, and chief engineer of floods.

Likewise, monitoring teams of water resources and planning ministries would monitor the specific intervention during implementation phase and report their findings to the steering committee. Separate documents including those relating to environmental impact, feasibilities, engineering design and no-objection certificates for each intervention, whether structural or non-structural, at the provincial and regional level would be submitted by the respective agencies.

The minister for water resources has already written letters to the chief ministers of Punjab, Sindh, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan to make available their funding shares in a timely manner as per financial phasing for implementation of all individual sub-projects located in each province.

The project seeks to augment existing meagre flood protection facilities through additional and new interventions and improve through restoration and remodelling the drains and waterways in the drainage network particularly in Sindh province where 2022 floods caused devastations besides installation of flood telemetry network in the country to gauge all river, nullah and streams at primary, secondary and tertiary levels for accurate and robust river flood forecasting and warning. It will also include installation of stationary and mobile weather radars for flood monitoring including flash flood and establishment of regional flood early warning centres at Quetta, Karachi, Hyderabad, Peshawar, Gilgit, Multan and Muzaffarabad.

The project envisages institutional strengthening and capacity building of project coordination and monitoring units (PCMUs) for implementation of Flood Protection Sector Project-III and National Flood Protection Programme-IV. It will also cover schemes for comprehensive management of flood waters of hill torrents of

Koh-i-Suleiman and Kirthar range by introducing nature-based solution and latest technologies for water dispersion and diversion structures.

Flood telemetry equipment would also be installed along hill torrents of D.G. Khan, Rajanpur and Kirthar range besides enhancement of resilience of major cities through studies and structural interventions and retrofitting of existing flood protection facilities and information.

Published in Dawn, July 10th, 2023