Islamabad: Pakistan’s $36 million (Dh132 million) Climate Change Adaptation Project, a result of a glacial outburst in northern Pakistan, will benefit the 185 million-strong population of the country.

The project was approved by Green Climate Fund (GCF) during its 14th board meeting, held in the Republic of Korea last year.

The project was submitted by Ministry of Climate Change together with United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for board’s approval.

According to an official of the ministry, the proposed project will benefit approximately 700.000 people on average directly (five districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and seven in Gilgit-Baltistan) and about 30 million indirect beneficiaries, half of whom are women and girls.

The project, thus, benefits about 15 per cent of the total population of Pakistan, estimated at 185 million as of 2014, according to World Bank data.

Twenty-three board members approved the project; an Indian Board member attempted to reject Pakistan’s proposal, citing unsubstantiated technical reasons.

The approved project will impact the lives of thousands of people who are living in constant danger of periodic glacial outbursts in northern Pakistan.

The main project outputs are: Strengthened sub-national institutional capacities to plan and implement climate change-resilient development pathways and Community-based Early Warning System (EWS) and long-term measures to increase communities’ adaptive capacity.

The project outcome will strengthen adaptive capacity and reduce exposure to climate risks posed by climate change impacts and Glacial Lake Outbursts Floods (GLOF) risks through increased technical capacity of provincial and line departments to integrate risk-averse measures into development plans, tools and budgets, and by expanding the Pakistan Meteorological Department’s Early Warning System (EWS) based on hydrological modelling and flood scenarios.

The project will also strengthen sub-national institutional capacities to plan and implement climate change and disaster-resilient development pathways.

Listing some other initiatives, the official said, “Another remarkable achievement of Ministry of Climate Change is launching of Green Pakistan Programme (GPP). As is well known, forestry and wildlife have been provincial subjects for several decades, well before the devolution of the 18th Amendment.”

Accordingly, GPP will be implemented with the support of all provinces and federating units. The GPP was approved by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, and Rs2 billion (Dh107 million) has been set aside in the current budget towards the project.

He told APP that Ministry of Climate Change had succeeded in getting the Climate Change Act approved by the cabinet. Under this act, the Climate Change Council will be established in which all chief ministers will be included. This council will be responsible to implement climate change related policies in their respective provinces.

Also, the Ministry of Climate Change portrayed the positive image of Pakistan on the International platform by signing the Paris Agreement in April 2016 which was ratified before COP-22.

Pakistan also participated in COP-22 which was held in Morocco.

Federal Minister for Climate Change Zahid Hamid announced in an official statement, “We have adopted a perspective development plan called ‘Vision 2025’, a National Climate Change Policy along with a framework for its implementation, and a National Disaster Risk Reduction Policy.”

He also said Pakistan is first country in the world whose National Assembly passed a unanimous resolution adopting the SDGs Agenda as its own national development agenda.

The minister also held bilateral meetings with his counterparts from UAE, Turkey and Iran. He also attended Women Leadersand the Global Transformation Summit and highlighted important initiatives taken for the empowerment of women in Pakistan.

“Similarly, GlobalChange Impact Study Centre, which is [an] attached department of Ministry of Climate Change and responsible for research work related to climate change issues, [has] made many contributions that includes International/National Research Papers, research reports,” he added.