ISLAMABAD: Benazir Income Support Programme (BISP) will enable its beneficiaries to deal with the multidimensional risks from climate change.
Minister of State and Chairperson BISP MNA Marvi Memon said this during her address to the participants of the session on “Environmental Adaptation Program for BISP beneficiaries” organized by BISP at its headquarters here on Thursday, says a press release.
The session was co-chaired by MNA Marvi Memon and Senator Mushahidullah Khan, Minister for Climate Change.
The participants included representative of several government organizations, national and international NGOs like Federal Flood Commission, NDMA, IUCN Pakistan, WFP, AKRSP, Pakistan Red Crescent Society, ACTED, Care International and others.
The purpose of the brainstorming session was to collaborate with different organizations and to provide a platform for experts to share their policy recommendations on women adaptation to climate change risks and training programmes enabling them to deal with climate change and also supplement their incomes.
In her welcome note, Chairperson BISP said that this is the first step of the series of the policy dialogues which BISP intends to hold on Environmental Adaptation Program for BISP beneficiaries.
She said that BISP is committed towards improvement of consumption patterns and cushioning the vulnerable women from the negative effects of slow economic growth, food crises and inflation.
In the current scenario, people across country are facing the adverse effects of climate change like increased temperatures, heavy rainfall, floods, increased incidences of droughts, storms, low agriculture productivity, loss of local food system and biodiversity, and degradation of natural resources.
The impacts of climate change are not gender-neutral and affect women more than the other groups, particularly the poor and marginalized women.
In view of the importance of this biggest social safety net initiative, it is realized that this may also contribute substantially to improve the resilience of women against climate change impacts, and to achieve environment sustainability.
Mushahidullah Khan, in his key note address, said that the issue of climate change is considered very important all over the world.
Most of the population on the earth, particularly women and children, are being affected by the climate change.
The government of the Pakistan, for the first time, has established a ministry for climate change which depicts the commitment of government towards this issue.
He said that due to deforestation and carbon emissions, temperatures in the country are rising which result in unpredictable weather conditions including heavy rain falls, melting of glaciers and floods.
