It said that Pakistan cannot afford to spend more on recovering from devastating floods blamed on climate change, and that it needs international help at the launch of a new U.N. appeal for aid.
The United Nations raised its humanitarian appeal for Pakistan by fivefold, to $816 million from $160 million, as a surge of water-borne diseases and the fear of growing hunger posed new dangers after weeks of unprecedented flooding.
The Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman told a conference on aid for Pakistan in Geneva that the developed world should accelerate funding for climate hit disasters.
The floods have submerged huge swathes of the South Asian country and killed nearly 1,700 people. The deluge, caused by record monsoon rains and heavy glacial melt in northern mountains, has impacted 33 million people, a population of 220 million, the government estimates at $30 billion.
The United Nations and the government blamed climate change for the disaster.
Julien Harneis, the UN resident coordinator and humanitarian coordinator in Pakistan said the $816 million target was absolutely not enough. Rehman said that Pakistan was in urgent need of medicine for 8.2 million people and would need additional supplies of food.
The director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told the meeting that Pakistan was on the verge of a public health disaster.