By Azeem Ahmed Khan

Pakistan is tightening its climate PSDP portfolio around fewer schemes, with forestry, ecosystem restoration and carbon sequestration taking the lead through the Green Pakistan Programme.

According to the official documents available with Wealth Pakistan, the Climate Change and Environmental Coordination Division has been allocated Rs2.478 billion under the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for FY2026-27, covering four ongoing schemes.

The allocation is lower than Rs2.784 billion earmarked for six schemes in FY2025-26, showing a year-on-year reduction of Rs305.890 million, or approximately 11%. However, the portfolio has become more concentrated around the Green Pakistan Programme, whose share in the division’s allocation has increased from 81% in FY2025-26 to 94% in FY2026-27.

The Upscaling of Green Pakistan Programme has received Rs2.335 billion in FY2026-27, compared with Rs2.250 billion in the preceding year. The thematic mapping identifies it as the only scheme in the portfolio with a direct, named linkage to adaptation, mitigation, biodiversity, and forestry.

The documents describe Green Pakistan as a large-scale afforestation and ecosystem restoration initiative linked to carbon sequestration. The programme’s revised total cost stands at Rs122.147 billion, with a PSDP share of Rs76.322 billion, expenditure of Rs34.964 billion, and a throw-forward of Rs41.358 billion.

The FY2026-27 portfolio also includes Rs51.600 million for Green Skills for Sustainable Development, Rs50.000 million for Formulation of National Urban Strategy and Guidelines, and Rs40.661 million for Strengthening Technical Capacities of the Ministry of Climate Change and Environmental Coordination.

The National Urban Strategy and Guidelines is the only FY2026-27 scheme carrying a foreign allocation at Rs50 million. The remaining Rs2.428 billion of the division’s allocation is shown as local funding.

In FY2025-26, the division’s portfolio comprised six schemes, including four ongoing and two new projects, with a total allocation of Rs2.784 billion. Apart from Rs2.250 billion for Green Pakistan, the allocations included Rs325.260 million for Strengthening Technical Capacities of the ministry, Rs83.390 million for Pakistan Bio-Safety Clearing House for Genetically Modified Organisms Regulation, Rs50.000 million each for National Urban Strategy and Guidelines and Green Skills for Climate-Resilient Development, and Rs25.000 million for Capacity Building on Water Quality Monitoring and Sustainable Development Goal 6, Target 6.1 reporting.

The thematic mapping classifies the biosafety clearinghouse and water-quality monitoring schemes as cross-cutting environmental protection and regulatory interventions. It describes them as regulatory and monitoring functions rather than direct adaptation or mitigation delivery.

Strengthening the ministry's technical capacities is mapped as a cross-cutting institutional capacity scheme, focused on institutional strengthening rather than field-level climate interventions.

The National Urban Strategy and Guidelines and Green Skills for Sustainable Development are mapped under cross-cutting urban resilience and green skills. The documents describe them as planning, strategy formulation, entrepreneurship and skills development initiatives that are adaptation-adjacent, but not classified as adaptation in the PSDP book.

The FY2026-27 project-wise record puts the combined total cost of the division’s four schemes at Rs123.619 billion, expenditure at Rs35.023 billion and throw-forward at Rs42.771 billion.

The latest portfolio shows that the division’s development spending is becoming more focused, with Green Pakistan anchoring the climate PSDP while institutional capacity, urban planning and green-skills initiatives support the broader environmental coordination agenda.

Credit: INP-WealthPk