Floods 2025: Pakistan seeks global support for post-disaster needs assessment

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan has formally approached international creditors, including the World Bank (WB), Asian Development Bank (ADB), European Union (EU), and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), for conducting a post-disaster needs assessment (PDNA) to ascertain the exact losses caused by the floods in 2025.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs, Government of Pakistan, has forwarded an official letter to the international creditors for making a formal request to undertake PDNA for the flood of 2025 in order to ascertain the exact losses inflicted on Pakistan’s economy. Although the government has prepared some initial assessment on the losses, which were shared with the PM Secretariat and the visiting review mission of the IMF. However, this unilateral assessment of damages has caused a lot of criticism for incorporating some mistakes in the initial assessment. For instance, the latest floods that struck in 2025 did not cause any damage in Balochistan, but the preliminary assessment shows damage occurring in Balochistan province.

According to the official communication sent out to the four international donors, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Government of Pakistan, presents its compliments to the Delegation of the European Union, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the United Nations Development Program, Islamabad, and expresses its appreciation for the continuous support extended to Pakistan. The recent climate-induced floods of 2025 have caused widespread devastation across the provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab, Gilgit Baltistan, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, severely impacting lives, livelihoods, and critical infrastructure. Considering this large-scale damage, the Government of Pakistan has decided to conduct a comprehensive Post-Disaster Needs Assessment (PDNA). Given the longstanding commitment to disaster response and resilience-building in Pakistan, the Delegation of the EU, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and UNDP are requested to consider the provision of technical experts to conduct a comprehensive PNDA-2025, with the Ministry of Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives in the lead.

“We look forward to your positive response and stand ready to facilitate coordination with relevant government Divisions/ Departments and stakeholders,” it states.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs, Government of Pakistan, avails itself of this opportunity to extend to the Delegation of the EU, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and UNDP, the assurances of its highest consideration.

The initial assessment of flood losses shared with the visiting IMF review mission estimated that it caused a loss of Rs371 billion. It was also assessed that the government envisaged GDP growth of 4.2 per cent on the eve of the budget for 2025-26, but now this projection was revised downward to 3.9 per cent for FY26.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance has informed the visiting IMF review mission that they could not meet the structural benchmark to amend the laws for 10 additional statutory State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in consultation with the Fund staff and in line with agreed Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies (MEFP) of the IMF to bring them in line with the SOE Act by the end of June 2025.

The government has identified that the PQA Act 1973, GPA Ordinance 2002, and KPT Act 1980 were finalised for the introduction of amendments. The Ministry of Information Technology and Telecommunication has not shared the Pakistan Telecom (Reorganization) Act 1996. The State Life Nationalization Order 1972 was under consultation. The WAPDA Act of 1958 had not yet been shared with the Ministry of Finance. The Pakistan Railways Act 1890 has been under consultation to bring amendments. The EXIM Bank Act 2002 has been under consultation. The National Bank of Pakistan (NBP) Act will be amended after the amendments in the Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF).