Dawn Internet Edition
By Anwar Mansuri
ISLAMABAD,
Aug 30: A qualitative change in the governance can solve most of the
problems of Pakistan, according to the chairman of the Commission on
Government Reforms, Dr Ishrat Hussain.
“Institutions should be built to provide good governance which is
prerequisite to removing poverty in the country,” he said at the launch
of the 2005 Human Development in South Asia Report here on Wednesday.
The report focuses on human security issues.
Dr Ishrat said the prevailing system worked for the privileged and the
powerful and not for the common good of the society. That objective
demanded that all citizens were provided equal access to economic
opportunities, and justice, he said.
“Education for all, an independent and powerful judiciary and
accountability of public representatives are needed to improve life in
Pakistan,” he said.
Dr Naseem Ashraf, chairman of the National Commission on Human
Development, supported Dr Ishrat’s submissions. “We lack freedom from
fear. Without justice there can be no peace, and without peace there
can be no development,” he said.
Dr Ashraf, who was active in the Association of Pakistani Physicians in
North America before moving back to Pakistan, reminded the West that
its “obsession with war on terror” would achieve nothing “until and
unless there is justice for all”.
Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme Jan
Vandemoortele on the occasion stressed “the urgent need for redirecting
the scarce resources (of the state) to social sectors”.
He recalled that two-third of the people of Latin America were
dissatisfied with their democratic governments. “They no longer believe
in the merit of democracy because it did not deliver”.
Norwegian ambassador Janis B. Kanavin, whose country funds the Mahbubul
Haq Human Development Centre, observed that South Asian countries were
not poor but had high poverty because of their high expenditure on
military.
“Deficit of justice is the root cause of conflicts (in the region),” he
said, calling on the regional countries to “respect and apply”
international laws and conventions on human rights.
Khadija Haq, widow of Dr Mahbubul Haq and lead author of the report,
said the report was about the security concerns of the majority people
in South who have always yearned to live in peace and harmony within
their societies and with their neighbours.
“But the politics, the ideologies of a minority of the population, the
greed of the captains of industry and commerce, and the politics and
theology of the international and transnational financial, business and
trading institutions have been standing in the way of letting ordinary
people live a peaceful life,” she said.
She regretted that if anything the human security for the vulnerable
groups in the region had worsened since the 1999 South Asia Human
Development Report stated that the region was “divided between the
hopes of the rich and the despair of the poor”.
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