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ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar on Monday stressed the need for concessional financing and debt relief for developing nations to bridge funding gaps in meeting global sustainable development goals (SDGs).

The comments came during Dar’s address at a debate of the High-Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development’s (HLPF) Ministerial Segment in New York for the follow-up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its 17 SDGs.

The 2025 HLPF is themed around advancing sustainable, inclusive, science- and evidence-based solutions for the 2030 Agenda and its SDGs, including good health and well-being, gender equality, decent work and economic growth.

Speaking at the forum, Dar said only 35 percent of the Agenda 2030 SDGs were on track and the compounding effects of the pandemic, food, fuel and finance crises as well as intensifying climate impacts had reversed the hard-won development gains and deepened inequalities.

“While national efforts are essential, these cannot succeed in isolation,” he said, calling for a “deep reform” of the international financial architecture to implement the SDGs.

“Developing countries need scaled up access to concessional and grant-based resources, meaningful debt relief, and scaled-up climate finance in order to bridge the SDG financing gap.”

The statement comes as Pakistan treads a long path to economic recovery while facing adverse impacts of climate change, with extreme weather events frequently affecting the South Asian country in recent years. So far this monsoon, more than 200 people have lost their lives in Pakistan as heavy rains continue to last parts of the country.

Dar said his country was scaling up climate action, targeting 60 percent renewable energy by 2030, and enhancing resilience through various initiatives.

“Our revised nationally determined contribution is nearing finalization,” he said. “We have also undertaken key macroeconomic reforms to stabilize our fiscal outlook and make the investment climate even more attractive.”

The Pakistani deputy PM said the Compromiso de Seville, a renewed global framework adopted at the Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development this month, offered a clear roadmap to tackle the challenges of financing sustainable development.

The framework focuses on closing the $4 trillion annual financing gap for the SDGs, addressing debt crises, and reforming the international financial system.

“Its implementation must begin without delay,” Dar added.

Dar is on a week-long visit to the United States to preside over the key events in the UN Security Council during Pakistan’s presidency for the month of July, according to the Pakistani foreign office.

He is also scheduled to hold a meeting with UN secretary-general as well as president of the UN General Assembly in New York.

ISLAMABAD: A medical board will evaluate this week Zahir Zakir Jaffer, convicted of the brutal murder of Noor Mukadam, as part of procedural requirements for his mercy petition before Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, a senior jail official said on Monday.

Mukadam, the 27-year-old daughter of a former diplomat, was brutally murdered by Jaffer at his Islamabad residence in July 2021, with investigations confirming she was tortured before being beheaded. A trial court sentenced Jaffer to death in 2022, a verdict later upheld by the Islamabad High Court in 2023.

In May 2025, the Supreme Court also upheld the death penalty, leaving Jaffer with the only option of seeking a presidential pardon under Article 45 of the Constitution, which allows the president to grant clemency by pardoning, reprieving or commuting a sentence.

“The [medical] board is expected to visit Adiala jail within this week, most likely in the next two to three days, to conduct the medical and psychological evaluation of the prisoner,” Jail Superintendent Abdul Ghafoor Anjum told Arab News.

Anjum said he had requested the director of the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) for the formation of the medical board after being informed by the convict’s counsel that he intended to file a mercy petition before the president.

“It is entirely a routine matter as whenever a mercy petition is to be filed for any prisoner, we are required to conduct a medical and psychological examination,” he said, adding the matter was being dealt with strictly in accordance with rules.

Officials at Adiala Jail sent two letters, dated July 8 and July 14, to PIMS, requesting the formation of the medical board.

“The appeal of above mentioned Confirmed Condemned Prisoner (Jaffer) was pending at [the] Supreme Court of Pakistan and the same has been dismissed,” read a letter, seen by Arab News.

“Now the mercy petition of [the] subject, cited confirmed condemned prisoner, has to be submitted before the Honourable President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. For that, the medical board and psychiatric board opinion is mandatory,” prison officials said in the letter, requesting PIMS management to schedule Jaffer’s examination within the jail premises.

PIMS constituted the medical board and named Dr. Shafqat Nawaz from the Psychiatry Department and Dr. Amir Naveed from the Neurology Department as its members, according to documents seen by Arab News.

“Following the board’s report, the confirmed condemned prisoner, Jaffer, may proceed to file a mercy petition in accordance with the rules,” Anjum added.

Mukadam and Jaffer, son of a wealthy industrialist, were widely believed to have been in a relationship which they had broken off a few months before her murder. 

Her shocking murder, involving members of the privileged elite of the Pakistani society, triggered an explosive reaction from women’s rights activists reckoning with pervasive violence against women in Pakistan.

It also mounted pressure for a swift conclusion of the trial in a country known to have a sluggish justice system and where cases typically drag on for years.