According to recent reports, Asian Development Bank (ABD) and World Bank (WB) have recently decided to conduct a ‘Damage and Needs Assessment (DNA)’ of floods in Pakistan, after the request of the country’s administration.

While talking to media, ABD’s country director for Pakistan, Rune Stroem said that this is the fourth DNA, which is mutually conducted by the ABD and WB in Pakistan in close association with the Economic Affairs Division.

“But this one is unique given the scale of devastation and geographical spread of the calamity,” the director added.

Rachid Benmessaoud, World Bank’s country director in Pakistan, stated, “The World Bank has completed numerous DNAs worldwide in collaboration with other key financing and donor institutions such as the ADB and we will be bringing that experience to bear on this DNA, which is going to be a challenge considering the enormity of the disaster.”

According to Rachid, the ABD and WB will join hands with UN and some more donors through participation and sharing of information.

Further, the statement issued by the WB said that the DNA concentrates on calculating three kinds of costs, which include direct damage, indirect losses and reconstruction costs.

In the meantime, DNAs are mainly conducted in the shortest possible time soon after a natural disaster to present the government and the international community with a credible evaluation of the extent of the damage and a cost estimation in order to reconstruct and rehabilitate the damaged infrastructure as well as services.