Saudi Arabia wants to replicate Pakistan’s green initiatives

Islamabad: Saudi Ambassador Nawaf bin Saeed Al-Maliki on Friday called on the prime minister’s special assistant on climate change, Malik Amin Aslam, and expressed interest in learning from Pakistan’s green initiatives and replicating them in own country.

The two agreed to strengthen the Islamabad-Riyadh ties, especially cooperation and collaborations to protect the nature and planet. They also discussed the Saudi government’s 10 Billion Tree Plantation Programme and Ecosystem Restoration Initiative.

The Saudi envoy appreciated Pakistan's efforts for afforestation and protection of the environmentally-sensitive and biodiversity-rich wildlife areas.

He said the Saudi government was ready to sign a memorandum of understanding with Pakistani climate change ministry to increase collaborations in environmental, climate change, renewable energy, water conservation and rainwater harvesting to promote Pakistan’s green initiatives in Saudi Arabia.

“We [ministry] feel much honoured to receive the Saudi agreement offer and will definitely sign the MoU after getting a formal go-ahead from Prime Minister Imran Khan,” he said. The Saudi envoy said his government was interested in replicating Pakistan’s recently launched Olive Tree Tsunami Initiative and National Agriculture Programme in the country.

The premier's aide asked the Saudi ambassador to send in his country’s technical team for discussion on the matter. He said the climate change ministry was implementing several world-acclaimed flagship programmes and projects in technical support with the international UN organisations including UNDP and UN Food and Agriculture Organisation and the World Bank.

"The world’s largest afforestation programme of 10 Billion Tree Tsunami Programme, Clean Green Pakistan Programme, National Agriculture Programme, National Olive Tree Tsunami Project, Ecosystem Restoration Initiative and Protected Areas Initiative are now being implemented successfully in consultation and coordination with the international organisations to achieve environmental sustainability and climate resilience through initiative," he said.

Malik Amin said the Protected Areas Initiative launched last year would boost the country’s protected areas cover from 13 per cent to 15 per cent by 2023 and create 5,000 green jobs across the country.

The Saudi ambassador said his country wanted to learn from Pakistan’s post-COVID-19 green economic recovery initiative and afforestation and nature conservation programmes. Both sides agreed to collaborate for combating the global health crisis post-pandemic and global warming.