Islamabad : United Nations Tuesday thanked European Union for contributing $21.2 million to support its recovery work for millions of Pakistanis affected by last year's devastating floods. “Contributions such as that of European Union are crucial to accelerating pace of recovery in Pakistan,”
Toshihiro Tanaka, UN Development Program Country Director said. “It will allow us to strengthen, restore public services and local government functions in the worst affected areas.” The devastating floods history started on July 27 with record-breaking rainfalls of 270 mili metres injust 24 hours in northern Pakistan, and ravaged central and southern regions for next two months. At least 1,985 people were killed and more than 2 million affected. Floods destroyed 1.74 million houses and inundated 2.24 million hectares of farmland. After an initial phase of rescue, relief efforts, UN is now working on a recovery program to restore livelihoods, repair basic community infrastructure and rebuild destroyed government offices. For that purpose, it has appealed for donations of $120 million, part of $2 billion fund raising campaign for Pakistan. “We hope our support will help local governments in worst affected communities to fully resume their public services,' EU Ambassador to Pakistan Lars-Gunnar Wigemark said. “We stand ready to help people of Pakistan as much as we can to recover from this tragedy.”
