LAHORE: An alliance of 28 civil society organisations (CSOs) has urged the World Bank (WB) and other stakeholders to go for a thorough analysis of climate change while preparing \u2018Country Climate and Development Report (CCDR) for Pakistan\u2019 so that such descriptions could prove to be effective as a diagnostic exercise and a framework for guiding future climate-responsible development.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In proposals to the bank and various other stakeholders, the Alliance for Climate Justice and Clean Energy (ACJCE) while commenting on the second phase of the World Bank\u2019s Stakeholder Engagement with CSOs for the CCDR, said a thorough analysis should be made of the historical interplay between the bank\u2019s development policy and finance operations, its advisory and technical assistance services, and its paradigms of development (and associated knowledge practices) and their connection to the present climate change crisis is a sine qua non.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ACJCE suggests that any conversation on \u201cintegrating climate change and development considerations\u201d must begin from a place of self-reflection and accountability so that history is not condemned to repeat itself. \u201cFrom the perspective of ACJCE and other CSOs and activists engaged in climate action in Pakistan, this analysis is entirely missing in the present project design. In fact, from the identified themes in the Master Deck of slides shared by the bank, it is obvious that the bank has only focused on \u201cwhat\u201d the problems are \u2014 the more important question of \u201cwhy\u201d they exist is conspicuous in their absence,\u201d reads the proposal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Considering that the CCDR is a diagnostic report, the alliance said: \u201cWe are of the view that a detailed examination of the bank\u2019s past practices is a prerequisite before setting the course for the future.\u201d \u201cIt is imperative to identify responsible parties, generate appropriate actions for accountability, reform the process where needed, and create checks and balances to plug loopholes in the future.\u201d It mentions that, according to the World Bank Group\u2019s description of the project, the CCDR is being prepared as a \u201cdiagnostic report\u201d to \u201cintegrate climate change and development considerations.\u201d The alliance terms CCDR as an urgent and long-overdue exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The exercise, according to the alliance, is not taking place in a vacuum. The need for such action arises from a global consensus that past patterns of consumption, production, development, and growth have been ruinous and destructive to mankind as a whole. \u201cAt this particular historical juncture, there is perhaps no better example of the extent and force of that destruction than the case of Pakistan itself\u2014currently undergoing one of the worst floods in its history after months of record-high heat waves and unprecedented climate abnormalities,\u201d it explains.The proposal claims that global financial flows have been the single biggest force carving the pathways to this destruction. The World Bank, it said, is fully implicated in the financing and support of a number of socially and environmentally destructive projects and irresponsible development policies in Pakistan \u2014 an ignominious history that is both well documented and well understood by Pakistani civil society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The bank has been directly or indirectly involved in supporting costly and risky hydropower, irrigation, coal, and fossil fuel-based power projects, to name just a few. The alliance proposes that Pakistan\u2019s CCDR should address some basic questions related to its own role before aiming to \u201cinform governments, CSOs, the private sector and development partners\u2019\u2019 on \u201cthe development and climate agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The basic questions that must be considered and listed by the alliance while preparing the CCDR include the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The main methodological limitations in the bank\u2019s research and analytic practices that have led it to support environmentally risky projects in the past, bank\u2019s values, assumptions, and beliefs about economic development and market growth; the perpetual historic gap between the rhetoric of \u201cprotecting vulnerable\u201d sections of the population and practices and outcomes on the ground, sources of knowledge and forms of data the WB typically relied on and what other sources and forms of data are necessary to incorporate in order to achieve the CCDR\u2019s goal of \u201cbuilding on data and rigorous research to identify concrete, priority actions to support the low-carbon, resilient transitions\u201d in an inclusive and meaningful way, limitations in the institutional framework of development policy finance, responsible climate finance; the damages incurred by Pakistani people due to the environmentally damaging projects and developmental paradigms supported by the bank; the forms of climate reparations; and a consultative process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Refrence Link<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1712177 https:\/\/www.dawn.com\/news\/1712177<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n