STAFF REPORT ISB: The World Bank has approved an additional financing of $35 million to support improved management, planning and development of water resources in the Indus River Basin with better environmental and social considerations.
This financing would help enhance the government’s capacity to address the basin level management of Indus water resources, including support to climate-change adaptation and mitigation measures.
“Water sector issues are enormous and complex and addressing them will require a strategic engagement over the medium and long term,” said Patchamuthu Illangovan, World Bank Country Director for Pakistan.
It helped equip key federal water management institutions with modern state of the art tools, improving management skills of their staff and conducting studies to inform policy.
Pakistan is among the most-affected countries by climate change as its water, food and energy security is largely dependent on its glacial resources located in the Himalaya-Karakoram range.
The project aims to strengthen the Indus system’s institutional and regulatory framework, and; bolster the technical capacity of the Ministry of Water and Power, the Indus River System Authority, the WAPDA and the Water Section of the Planning Development and Reform Division.
The official said that the development and management of the Indus Basin is a huge challenge, requiring very high levels of administrative, engineering and scientific capability,” says Javaid Afzal, the task team leader of the project.
The additional financing will be used among other things to upgrade hydraulic research laboratories to provide state of the art physical and numerical modelling facilities to strengthen overall capacity in improved water resources management.