Blinken: US giving $10M more in aid for Pakistan

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $10 million in new aid for food security in Pakistan as record flooding continues to affect tens of millions of people in that country.

The flooding, blamed in part on climate change, killed nearly 1,600 people, damaged nearly 2 million homes and overall wreaked damage estimated at more than $30 billion.

Nearly 15% of Pakistan’s rice crop and 40% of its cotton crop were lost, according to officials. The waters also wiped out the personal grain stores that many farming families rely on for food yearlong.

"This will provide urgent supplies to help farmers recover, like seeds and fertilizer, assistance repairing critical irrigation infrastructure damaged by the floods."

The flooding has been a blow to Pakistan’s important cash crops. Losses will mean lower exports of rice, which earned $2 billion in 2020. Cotton losses could hurt the country’s biggest export, textiles and clothes, which brought in more than $20 billion annually in recent years.

"Of the 33 million people affected, 16 million are children," said Pakistani Foreign Minister Bhutto Zardari during a joint appearance with Blinken in Washington.

"Of the 1600 deaths that we've had so far, a third of them have been children. The irony of this is: That Pakistan has contributed 0.8% to the global carbon output," he said.

Zardari praised the Biden administation for passing legislation to combat climate change.

"We congratulate him and your administration on the historic legislation that has been passed at home," he said.

"But it's not only important that you build back better here, the opportunity,  this crisis in Pakistan, is that we must build back better, greener, more climate resilient back home as well," he said.