ISLAMABAD: The Asian Development Bank (ADB) released funds to the tune of $1.5 billion for Pakistan, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar confirmed on Wednesday, as the South Asian country looks for financial help to recover from cataclysmic floods that have inflicted heavy losses on it since mid-June.
The ADB said last week it had approved $1.5 billion for Pakistan to help provide social protection, promote food security and support employment in the country. Devastating floods and global supply chain disruptions following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have damaged Pakistan’s already fragile economy.
The South Asian country estimates losses from raging floods, which have killed over 1,700 since June 14, at $30 billion.
“Asian Development Bank has released funds $1.5 billion to Pakistan under BRACE program for the credit of Govt of Pakistan’s account with State Bank of Pakistan,” Dar wrote on Twitter.
ADB’s Building Resilience with Active Countercyclical Expenditures (BRACE) program will help fund Pakistan’s $2.3 billion countercyclical development expenditure program designed to cushion the impacts of external shocks, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the bank said on its website.
Tariq Niazi, an ADB director, had said the program would help Pakistan deal with the impact of immediate shocks to the economy, while, in parallel, continue the structural reforms that are necessary to improve the country’s medium- to long-term macroeconomic prospects.
