IMF mission to visit Pakistan next week to take forward $1bn climate fund talks: Aurangzeb

Finance Minister Muhammad Aurangzeb said on Thursday that a team of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) would be in Pakistan for a four-day visit next week to take forward the discussion on a $1 billion fund for climate resilience. Pakistan has been ranked as the most vulnerable country to climate change in 2022 when it faced devastating monsoon floods that claimed over 1,700 lives, washed away swathes of agricultural land, affected 33 million people, and incurred losses worth $33bn, according to governmental estimates. The country had requested $1bn from IMF’s Resilience and Sustainability Trust (RSF) in October, the minister had revealed during his visit to Washington then. “The next IMF mission is [scheduled for] 24th to 28th [February], which will be here to take the climate resiliency fund discussion forward,” Aurangzeb said in an informal talk with reporters in Islamabad.