WB, ADB to assess rebuilding costs

ISLAMABAD—A joint team from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and World Bank will begin an assessment of the needs and reconstruction costs following the 7.6 magnitude earthquake that devastated parts of Pakistan on October 8, 2005.
The joint team will begin work on Monday. It will carry out damage assessments to obtain credible estimates of the cost of reconstruction following the quake. The team expects to submit its assessment by mid-November.
“The Asian tsunami disaster earlier this year provided a model through which we could quickly mobilize a joint team to make an assessment that will guide the reconstruction and rehabilitation following the earthquake,” says Peter Fedon, ADB Country Director in Pakistan in a press release issued here on Friday.
“Efficient coordination is crucial at this stage to ensure that work is carried out as quickly as possible according to our respective strengths and experience”.
In the Joint needs assessment, ADB will focus on the education, transport, water, energy, and agriculture sectors, while the World Bank will concentrate on livelihood restoration, housing health, private sector, and environment. Cutting across these sectors, the World Bank team will also conduct an economic assessment, assess hazard risk management and social safeguard needs. ADB will, meanwhile, assess the institutional capacity for reconstruction.
“We are racing against time to access the damage so we can develop a reconstruction assistance strategy and begin the rebuilding. The World Bank and all other development partners of Pakistan are humbled by the scale of this disaster and are working together smoothly” said John Wall, World Bank Country Director for Pakistan.
“The first thing is to provide all possible assistance to the communities affected by the earthquake; at the same time it is imperative that the country’s poverty reduction programme does not lose steam”.
The day after the quake, ADB reallocated US $10 million from ongoing projects for immediate emergency assistance for rehabilitation work in worst affected areas of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and North West Frontier Province. ADB is prepared to significantly increase its assistance, depending on the detailed assessments.
The World Bank has so far announced US $40 million to be redirected from Existing projects in the affected provinces and has said the amount would run to hundreds of millions of dollars, as soon as it is useful.—APP