Pakistan Flood Response Event at Asia Society
Devastating floods in Pakistan have left 1,600 dead and have destroyed the homes and livelihoods of over 20 million people. The scale of destruction is worse than any natural disaster in Pakistan's recent history. Bridges and buildings are ruined, communities are stranded, and disease has begun to spread.
On Thursday, August 19, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan Ambassador Richard C. Holbrooke, USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah, and other international figures will come together and discuss solutions to this devastating crisis. The event will take place at Asia Society in New York.
"With local livelihoods, crops, roads, bridges, rail tracks and houses destroyed across a major swathe of Pakistan, the cost of rescue and rehabilitation will be astronomical for the federal and provincial governments—continuously being pressured by the West to 'do more' in the war on terror .... The worry is that if there is no concerted effort by the national and international agencies to effectively rehabilitate the flood affectees, lack of credibility in the government becomes more entrenched and issues of parochialism, ethnicity, and nationalism will come to the forefront in the public discourse again," said Asia Society Associate Fellow Ayesha Haroon.
Seating is extremely limited, but the discussion will also be a free live video webcast at AsiaSociety.org/live August 19th from 8:30 to 10:00 am ET (5:30 pm Islamabad time).
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Slideshow: Pakistan Under Water
This post originally appeared on Asia Blog.