The head of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has donated 70,000 dollars from an international leadership prize to flood relief efforts in Pakistan, the agency said on Monday.
Sweden’s Tallberg Foundation awarded Achim Steiner the prize for “principled pragmatism” in a ceremony in Stockholm on Sunday evening.
Floods brought on by heavy monsoon rains that began a month ago in the north of Pakistan have swamped a fifth of the country, killed more than 1,500 people and displaced more than 17 million.
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The UN boss said he had been “deeply touched not only by the scale of the disaster but also the extraordinary efforts of local communities and organizations in mobilizing relief efforts while support from the international community was being deployed.” The money will be transferred to Pakistan’s Sarhad Rural Support Programme — which has been aiding communities in the Khyber—Pakhtoonkhwa Province.
Mr. Steiner called on the world to step up aid efforts and said the scale of the disaster was a reminder of the need to address the causes and consequences of environmental change.
“The vulnerability of societies — particularly the poor — to the impacts of these change phenomena such as climate change and degradation of our ecological life support systems continues to grow,” he said. “Our responsibility to reflect and act has never been greater.” The Tallberg Foundation Leadership Award is given to an individual who has “consistently applied humanistic, social and ecological values.”
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