Bilawal discusses challenges to education amid flood devastation with Malala at UNGA

Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari Tuesday met Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai at the United Nations (UN) to discuss challenges to education after the devastation due to Pakistan's catastrophic floods.

In a brief statement on Twitter, the foreign minister said that they discussed Pakistan's floods and challenges posed by the climate catastrophe to education for millions of young children affected.

Both leaders also exchanged views on women's rights and girls' education, the foreign minister's tweet mentioned.

Record monsoon rains and glacial melt in northern Pakistan triggered the flooding that has impacted nearly 33 million people in the South Asian nation of 220 million, sweeping away homes, crops, bridges, roads and livestock in damages estimated at $30 billion.

Hundreds of thousands of people who have been displaced are living in the open, exposing them to the diseases spread in the stagnant waters. They are in dire need of food, shelter, clean drinking water, toilets and medicines, authorities have said.

The foreign minister touched down in Washington a day earlier to attend the 77th UNGA session.

The foreign minister has a busy schedule, attending various high-level meetings and events, bilateral meetings with a number of his counterparts, media and think-tank interactions, besides chairing the Group of 77 (developing countries) and China Annual Meeting of Foreign Ministers, OIC Annual Coordination Meeting of Foreign Ministers, and participation in the meeting of the OIC Contact Group on Jammu and Kashmir.