Coordinator to Prime Minister on Climate Change, Romina Khurshid Alam on Tuesday that Pakistan faces exacerbating risks from natural disasters, many of them caused due to climate change, as demonstrated by the devastating 2005 earthquake, the 2022 floods and 2015 heat wave. However, building resilience is inevitable to ensures that lives and livelihoods of the people, natural ecosystems, critical infrastructure such as roads, bridges, schools and hospitals can withstand these calamities, reducing loss of life and minimizing the economic impact, the PM’s climate aide emphasized in her statement in the context of the National Resilience Day. Every year on October 8, Pakistan commemorates National Resilience Day to remember the tragic earthquake that struck in 2005, devastating parts of northern Pakistan and Azad Jammu & Kashmir. This day serves as a reminder of the over 73,000 lives lost and countless others impacted by the 7.6 magnitude earthquake. It also sheds light on Pakistan's ongoing efforts to build resilience against natural disasters, which are becoming more frequent and intense. The PM’s climate aide Romina Khurshid Alam paid tribute to the victims of both the 2005 earthquake, the floods of 2022 and 2015 heat wave, acknowledging the immense challenges posed by climate change.

She highlighted the role of the various federal and provincial government organisations for implementing policies and plans for disaster resilience building of the country, its people and ecosystems. “The 8th October day underscores the unprecedented significance of collaboration between local, provincial and national stakeholders to strengthen disaster response systems and improve infrastructure, poverty alleviation, and environmental management,” Ms Alam said. Emphasising the power of unified coping action to mitigate the impacts of disasters in the country, Romina Khurshid Alam urged all provincial and federal stakeholders to seek, create and enhance synergies among each other for benefiting from eachother's strengths, expertise, knowledge and capacities for achieving interoperability amongst local, zonal, national, global, and public and private sectors through a ‘whole of society’ approach. “There is need to understand for us that without cooperation and coordination among institutions responsible for disaster risk management, development of contingency plans and risk communication strategies and their effective and efficient implementation is not possible, needed for building effective disaster resilience of lives and livelihoods of communities and public infrastructure is if for national resilience,” PM’s coordinator Romina Khurshid Alam cautioned.

In fact, ‘National Resilience Day’ must be marked as inspiration for those responsible for developing and implementing disaster risk management policies and action plans to embrace the best practices and implement policies and strategies aimed at strengthening the nation's resilience,” she stressed. The PM’s climate aide said that as one of the most disaster-affected countries in the world, Pakistan's resilience-building efforts are essential for mitigating the impacts of climate change. Romina Khurshid Alam said further that while natural disasters have a direct economic impact, particularly in a developing economy like Pakistan’s, by investing in disaster resilience, we can reduce the financial strain on government resources and support sustainable and disaster-resilient economic growth by framing and implementing programmes like as climate-smart agriculture and green infrastructure development for achieving goals of disaster-resilience and environmental sustainability. Use of technology, strengthening early warning systems and building robust infrastructure is also vital for building climate resilience, she stressed.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan