WB asks Pakistan to prove ability to manage foreign aid

UNITED NATIONS – As several countries boosted their aid pledges for flood hit-Pakistan, the World Bank called on Pakistan to take steps to reassure donor countries that it is capable of using their funds responsibly and transparently and that it can enact reforms.
World Bank President Robert Zoellick made that call at a high-level meeting on Pakistan’s flood crisis in New York Sunday evening, attended by some 25 top diplomats from around the world as well as heads of international financial institutions.
The World Bank also stressed on Pakistani people to pay more taxes not only for rehabilitation and reconstruction of flood affectees but also for mobilising the world to pay for Pakistan.
The overall figure of fresh pledges made on Sunday was not immediately available.
Zoellick told the UN meeting, co-chaired by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, that Pakistan would have to prove its ability to manage foreign aid ahead of an October meeting in Brussels to review a flood damage assessment report the World Bank and Asian Development Bank are preparing.
He also called on Pakistan to mobilise its resources for the task and implement economic reforms.
“Maybe we can turn the tragedy into an opportunity, but we’ll succeed only if the government truly takes ownership and is backed seriously by donors,” he said.
In order for Pakistan to effectively use aid funds and secure additional donations, “the government will need a reconstruction founded on transparency, accountability, flexibility backed by law,” said Zoellick. “We have to work through Pakistani institutions.”
Zoellick underlined Pakistan’s central role in sustaining relief and reconstruction efforts. “We’ve seen fantastic capabilities with the Pakistani rescue efforts. We need to continue these and broaden these to the civilian and political segments.”
“We’re going to need Pakistanis to pay for Pakistan if we’re going to be able to mobilise the world to pay for Pakistan,” he said.
“To make most effective use of the help and even to secure full donor support, the government will need a reconstruction founded on transparency, accountability, flexibility, backed by law,” Zoellick added.
“Senior Pakistani officials have told us that this is what they wish to do,” he said. “Yet experience from many countries warns that the machinery tends to slide back to business as usual.”
He added that the Pakistani government should “continue to take concrete steps by the October meeting, backed by law, so we have an opportunity to build Pakistani ownership, governance and capacity.”
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton echoed Zoellick, saying that Pakistan must “lead by instituting the reforms that will pave the way to self-sufficiency.”