Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Altaf Shakoor here on Friday said that the climate change-generated calamity hit Pakistan deserves debt relief and International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB) and all other lenders including the Chinese creditors should consider the Pakistani situation on humanitarian grounds and give it much needed debt relief.
Recalling the earthquake of Haiti in 2010, he said the World Bank had announced total cancellation of all remaining Haitian loans. He said at that time World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick. had said: “Relieving Haiti’s remaining debt is part of our effort to pursue every avenue to help Haiti’s reconstruction efforts.
We will continue to work in close cooperation with the Haitian government and our international partners to support the country’s recovery and longer-term development.”
He said this cancellation by the World Bank of Haiti’s debt to IDA was made possible by contributions from Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. Altaf Shakoor asked is the World Bank and other lenders are kind enough to show this generosity in the case of Pakistan?
He also recalled that following the devastating earthquake in Haiti, the IMF established a Post-Catastrophe Debt Relief (PCDR) Trust that allows the Fund to join international debt relief efforts for very poor countries that are hit by the most catastrophic of natural disasters.
