As Pakistan faces the worst humanitarian disaster in its history, the country will have to pay $3 billion each year to foreign creditors – a sum that dwarfs current levels of emergency aid – unless we respond today.
Already, Pakistan’s government spends three times more on debt payments than it does healthcare. Now, instead of grant assistance, the World Bank and Asian Development Bank have offered $2.9 billion more in new loans. This will only add to Pakistan’s enormous and unsustainable $49 billion debt.
Please sign our petition to President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner today.
Dear President Obama and Secretary Geithner,
Please ensure that Pakistan can maximize its resources on reconstruction and recovery after this summer’s devastating flooding. We urge you to:
1) Call on all bilateral and multilateral creditors to institute a two year moratorium with no interest accrual on all of Pakistan’s debt payments to free up $3 billion per year for recovery. This should be a first step towards a debt audit and definitive debt cancellation.
2) Ensure that emergency disaster-related assistance, wherever possible, be in the form of grants instead of loans.
3) Lead with up-front funding for climate change-related disaster preparation to save lives in the future.
