Finance Minister Ishaq Dar disclosed on Wednesday that about 90% of the international community’s donations made during a donors’ meeting in Geneva for flood-stricken Pakistan were project loans that will be disbursed over the following three years.
The international community promised Pakistan earlier this week that it will receive more than $10 billion to aid in its recovery from last year’s disastrous floods. For the summit, which was co-hosted by Islamabad and the UN, representatives from almost 40 countries as well as private donors and international financial institutions had convened.
Dar said that $8.7 billion of the commitments were loans during a news conference on Wednesday with Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif and other federal cabinet members. He withheld information on the conditions of these loans. The prime minister did, however, state that “we anticipate the terms to be mild.”
He said that agreements from the Islamic Development Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the World Bank brought project loan funding to $8 billion.
Dar added, “I am deliberately not including the Saudi Development Bank’s pledge since it is unclear if their statement of $1 billion corresponds to programmed lending or project financing.”
When asked when he anticipated that these commitments would result in real inflows, the minister said, “That depends on us.”
“These pledges will be fulfilled more quickly if we can design and develop feasibilities swiftly enough to satisfy the donors.”
