Prime Minister Imran Khan stated on Tuesday that poor countries will require at least $4.3 trillion to recover from the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and meet sustainable development goals.
PM Imran Khan, speaking at the United Nations High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development 2021, said that developing countries have only received less than 5% of the requested funding so far.
The prime minister expressed his expectation that at least $150 billion will be granted to finance sustainable development projects and programmes in developing countries, highlighting the need of helping developing countries to deal with issues.
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“To combat the virus and reestablish global commerce, investment, and growth, universal and affordable access to COVID-19 vaccine was critical,” he continued.
Prime Minister Imran Khan stated that the world must increase vaccine manufacturing, notably in underdeveloped nations, and ensure that vaccines are distributed quickly to recover from Covid-19 crisis. He advocated the waiver of intellectual property rights, even if only temporarily, vaccine production under licence, full funding of the COVAX facility, grants, and concessional credit to enable developing nations to purchase vaccines at reasonable prices.
During his speech, the prime minister praised the UN secretary general’s outstanding performance, as well as the entire UN system’s relief and recovery efforts in the aftermath of the pandemic.
By the grace of Almighty Allah, Pakistan remained fortunate in comparison to other nations since the government had been able to limit the virus through a policy of “smart lockdown” and a focus on the poor, he said.
PM Imran stated that Pakistan was working to speed up its immunisation campaign after successfully managing human lives and livelihoods through the Ehsaas socio-welfare programme.
He stressed the importance of following through on agreements to give developing nations with concessional and grant financing, such as the 0.7 percent Official Development Assistance commitment and the $50 billion accelerated IDA-20 window.
