October 2, 2002	Wednesday	Rajab 24, 1423

KARACHI, Oct 1: Pakistan’s donor agencies came under heavy fire of the participants of a discussion on “Social Development in Sindh — a donor’s view” on Tuesday for misuse of funds, creating debt burden on the country but without any accountability of their performance.

The occasion was the two days conference on “Economic Development in Sindh” sponsored by Dawn group of newspapers. In the second session of the first day on Tuesday, Lena Lindberg of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and Marshuk Ali Shah, country director of Asian Development Bank to Pakistan made presentation on their contribution in social development in Sindh. Abid Hassan, acting representative of the World Bank was scheduled to participate in the discussion. But he could not make it from Islamabad.

Dr Asad Saeed, the Session Discussant, representing Social Policy and Development Centre (SPDC) spoke of the squandering of funds distributed under foreign aided Social Action Programme.

“On implementation of SAP, the number of girls enrolment in Sindh schools came down instead of going up,” he recalled. He mentioned many instances where funds were released but there were no schools. Dr Asad’s point was that funds offered by the donor agencies are debt creating instruments which add to the liabilities of recipient countries. There are conditions attached to these funds. Yet when the investment of these funds do not give desired results the donors are not held accountable.

Thereafter, one participant after the other, came down rather harshly on the donors, blaming them for attaching difficult conditions with assistance that include a virtual blanket enforcement of sales tax on poor people of Pakistan, secularisation of the society and liberalisation of economy.

Eventually, the Sindh Finance Minister Dr Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, who was chairman of the session, came to the rescue of the donors stating that the government seeks assistance from them and they respond. He held bad governance of the previous administrations responsible for misuse of donors’ funds.

Dr Hafeez Sheikh recalled that ADB had contained its operations because of bad governance and mismanagement of funds when the present government took over. “It is our policy decision to seek assistance from the donors and not theirs,” he stressed while pointing out that “we have to decide what is in best interest of the country.”

The ADB country representative took exception to the remarks on donors’ role in social development and made it clear that it is entirely government’s responsibility how the funds are invested. “How can donor agencies be accountable for the mismanagement of government,” he asked.

Marshuk Ali Shah recalled the detection of thousands of ghost schools in Punjab and Sindh. “Who should be held responsible,” he raised a question.

Earlier, in their presentations, the UNDP and ADB representatives spoke of the growing poverty in Pakistan, particularly in Sindh.

In her presentation, Lena Lindberg made it clear that UNDP was not a donor agency and there are no conditions attached to its assistance.

She disclosed that UNDP is offering assistance on urban poverty after having found Pakistan to be a ‘marginalised state’. She spoke of the acute poverty in rural Sindh and expressed concern that urban rural gap in this province is on rise.

“Bonded labour and extended drought are adding to the miseries of the poor on whom the burden of indebtedness is mounting,” she pointed out. This situation she said calls for immediate intervention.

She informed the audience of the assistance given by UNDP for restoration of democracy in Pakistan and many other areas of economic importance.

The ADB representative Marshuk Ali Shah in his speech pointed out that “over two-thirds of the household in rural Sindh may be classified as economically vulnerable.”

“The unequal land distribution in Sindh is a cause of concern,” he spoke while elaborating on prevalence of poverty in Sindh.

He said that while the incidence of poverty is one important indicator of socio-economic conditions, it is more instructive to assess the economic vulnerability of a target population, where economic vulnerability is defined as the extra risk of falling below the poverty line.

He explained that vulnerable households are generally found to have low mean expenditure levels coupled with a high variance of expenditure — essentially households are vulnerable if they do not have the means to smooth out consumption expenditure in response to fluctuations in income.

“Rural Sindh tends to be characterised by highly unequal land distribution and the proportion of small farms is just 33 per cent of the total,” he said.

Marshuk Ali Shah shared with audience the data on education, health and other social sector to point out that social conditions in Sindh are far worse than many parts of the country and should be a cause of concern.

He gave a detailed review of the projects taken up by ADB in Sindh and the new assistance projects in pipeline.