Pakistan likely to receive another $500m loan from ADB in December

• ADB aims to improve a coastal drainage system in Pakistan.
• The lender gave $1.5bn to Pakistan earlier this month.
• ADB expects to provide climate aid to countries in Asia.

Pakistan is likely to receive another loan worth $500 million from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in December as the lender is looking at more climate impact projects, Bloomberg reported.

The Manilla-based lender aims to improve a coastal drainage system in Pakistan to help prevent another catastrophic flooding.

Nearly 1,700 people have been killed in the floods caused by heavy monsoon rains and melting glaciers. 

Pakistan estimates the cost of the damage at nearly $40 billion, and the government and United Nations have blamed the catastrophe on climate change.

The ADB expects to provide climate aid in the form of new loans of up to $5 billion to countries in Central and West Asia as part of its growing push to help countries withstand the impact of floods, droughts and extreme weather.

“The whole world is facing a kind of climate emergency,” Yevgeniy Zhukov, the bank’s director general for Central and West Asia that includes Pakistan, said in an interview in Karachi. 

“We are trying to refocus our investments, not just in Pakistan, but in the region, on focusing more on climate change.”

The lender, which earlier this month gave $1.5 billion to Pakistan for social protection and food security after the devastating flooding, is looking to approve as much as $500 million in December to the climate-ravaged nation.

Zhukov stated that ADB which is currently in the progress of projects worth as much as $25 billion in the region is reviewing its next year pipeline for climate change impact.

The bank, which has been traditionally invested in infrastructure, transport and energy projects is making more room for disaster resilience and transition to renewable energy, the bank’s director general for Central and West Asia mentioned.

“We have to do something, otherwise if we just keep doing kind of things as usual and just continue our kind of infrastructure investments and then next monsoon this infrastructure will be washed away,” said Zhukov.