The UN System welcomes the opportunity to participate in the Pakistan Development Forum 2001. The level of representation by the Government of Pakistan at this gathering is a strong indicator of the importance which the Government places on its relations with the donor community.
At present Pakistan is going through serious macro-economic difficulties due to various socio-political and economic factors, which have resulted in decline of real earnings of the lowest income groups in the country. These problems have a human face. The country is confronted with an acute problem of unemployment and underemployment. High population growth compounded by the inability of its economy to generate more employment opportunities and discrepancy between supply and demand of skilled human resources exacerbate this problem.
Poverty is on the rise in Pakistan. In 2000, the Government of Pakistan began to consult its development partners on the preparation of Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper. The UN’s core advice was for priority attention to be given to five key indicators, namely, (i) young child mortality, (ii) maternal mortality, (iii) child malnutrition, (iv) net primary school enrolment with emphasis on girls, and (v) caloric-based poverty reduction. The UN group also argued that results could only be achieved when poverty reduction initiatives are backed up with core investment in people that remains immune from other competing priorities of the Government.
The efforts of the Planning Commission to provide a twenty-five year vision for poverty elimination withPlanning Commission goals, targets and instruments, are commendable. The UN welcomes the adoption of a rolling planning approach as evidenced in the Three-Year Plan and Poverty Reduction Strategy. However given the recent track record, the we found that some of the targets adopted in the vision 2025 are highly ambitious and may be difficult to achieve.
In Pakistan, the real challenge lies in the implementation of plans and policies as well as winning the confidence of a skeptical public. Another challenge is to enableand the six million poor households of the country to lift themselves out of the poverty trap. Our The community development approach, by mobilizing and organizing poor in Community-Based Organizations, has proved highly highly successful. The Government’s Devolution Plan is going to play a key role in this regard and in fact the success of the Devolution Plans depends uponon social mobilization and effective participation. The Devolution Plan represents the best opportunity in a long time to realize the donor community’s long-standing advice for participatory human development.
The success of the poverty reduction program depends upon the updated and reliable information on poverty issues and constant monitoring of poverty to record the progress being achieved. To cater such fundamental needs, a Centre for Research on Poverty Reduction and Income Distribution has been established in the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics. The centre has already started basic research on core issues and is likely to play a major role in the formulation of policies for poverty reduction.
In the health sector, the Government should invest in taking preventive measures, e.g., investments in clean drinking water supply and sanitation can help in reducing the risks of many diseases, such as hepatitis, diarrhoea, kidney diseases, etc. Many diseases, for example polio and tuberculosis, are directly related with poverty and should be subjected to special efforts of control. At present, Pakistan-Afghanistan epidemiological block contributes 75% of the proven cases of poliomyelitis in the Eastern Mediterranean and South Asian Region. The UN System lauds the great efforts and the progress made in Pakistan up till now. But the Government should further intensify its efforts in 2001, thus contributing to the elimination of the polio scourge from the face of earth.
Equally important is to equip the blood banks for 100% screening of blood for respond to the problems of drug abuse and HIV/AIDs threat, which can only be dealt with thorough multisectoral action, involving the ministries of health, narcotics, education, local government, labor, finance, etc.
The UN System will continue to support the Government’s initiatives on reproductive health, particularly the maternal and child mortality. We are pleased to note that the Government is planning to integrate the population and health ministries and steps have been already taken to merge two cadres of workers, namely, village-based family planning workers with the national health workers to meet the challenges of family planning and health services.
and other diseases related with blood transfusion.
, particularly the women, In education, women and girls are particularly vulnerable and disadvantaged. The implications on human rights for social and economic development are far-reaching. Despite the recent encouraging trends in enrollment of girls at the primary level, there is a need to intensify the strategy go foraimed at removing social and cultural barriers to girl’s education thus engendering female education as a social normfemale . The UN Agencies are has led to a strategy that calls for promoting an increase in net primary enrollment rate for girls, through advocacy and social mobilization, reduced costs of education, enhancement of teacher morale and motivation, recruitment of additional teachers, and provisional food as an incentive to increase girl’s participation. The UN is further committed to support strengthening of the education policy for bringing an improvement in the quality of education.Increasing literacy rate is not an easy task, especially in the context of rising population. Continued efforts are needed to educate people to bring an attitudinal change.
In general Tthe Government has taken significant steps for the advancement of women. It is recognized that gender equality is high on the agenda of the Government, as is evident by the provision of 33% reserved seats for women in the local governments; announcement of amnesty for women convicted under the Hudood Ordinance; organization of a human rights convention; and the establishment of a Permanent National Commission on the Status of Women. Data from the first round of local elections show that women participated enthusiastically in local bodies elections, both as voters as well as candidates. Support is needed to assist the elected women to take an active role in the local councils. The UN team will continue to support the Government in sensitizing the citizenry for the political, economic and social empowerment of women and advocating for reserved seats.
Pakistan needs to prepare itself better for emergencies related to drought and also plan mitigation measures in the longer term. Drought has been prevalent in Balochistan and Sindh for the past three years. Areas such as Balochistan normally receive the bulk of their annual rainfall in the winter months from December to April. In the 2000/01 winter to date, conditions have again been abnormally dry and no recovery from the earlier drought has been possible. The brunt of this drought will be borne by poor people in rural areas whose livestock and other assets have already been depleted by the previous two dry years.
The outlook for Pakistan’s wheat crop to be harvested in the next two months is also much less favorable than in 2000 when a surplus of one to two million tons was achieved. Due particularly to poor winter rains and shortages of irrigation water in Punjab and Sindh, the wheat harvest in 2001 may fall short of needs by at least one to two million tons. National wheat stocks will be drawn down in the second half of 2001, and by the end of the year, further imports are expected to be necessary for the first time in over twelve months. UN Agencies stand ready to assist in the difficult months ahead. UN will further assist the Government in the management of dryland on sustainable basis under the "National Sustainable Development Program".
The problem of drought is equally severe in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan where the Government has achieved considerable success in the elimination of poppy. The dramatic increase in the price of opium gum since the decree banning all opium cultivation issued by the Afghan authorities in July 2000, may pose a challenge to the poppy free status of Pakistan.
Since mid-2000, many thousands of distressed Afghans have crossed into Pakistan to escape fighting and the effects of what is now being described as the worst drought in Afghanistan’s recorded history. In addition, Pakistan continues to host more than two million long-term refugees who have sought refuge from fighting over the past decade. UN and NGOs are currently assisting 65,000 newly arrived refugees who have been verified through a formal registration process. It is estimated that a similar number of genuine cases exist, mainly in the vicinity of Peshawar. UN Agencies are still holding discussions with the Government to find humanitarian solution to this issue, until such time as they are able to return to Afghanistan. Meanwhile UN Agencies are expanding their assistance in Afghanistan in order to assist as many people as possible in or near to their places of origin.
The Government of Pakistan has made a substantial progress in capitalizing the opportunities offered bydeveloped an ambitious policy on the Information Technology (IT) for economic development. The real challenge in IT is to produce quality IT technicians and computer scientists who can bring a thrill in economic activities at for home and abroad who can contribute to human development and economic growth. This wshould also contribute towards addressing the problem of absorbing tens of thousands of unemployed graduates in new economic activities. The UN team will further extend assistance to the Government in this regard.
The UN would caution that the privatization program should avoid lay-off of thousands of workers with no safety nets and no re-training opportunities for alternative livelihoods.
In conclusion, the UN System recommends that the mobilization of financial and human resources to address the issues of poverty, gender, environment and devolution be tenaciously pursued through innovative partnership with private sector, civil society and donor community, particularly in the present environment of dwindling agricultural output due to drought and external strains on the fragile financial capacity of the country. We stand ready to play our role in this regard.